conditional vs causal

[gplaya123]

Let me use the example from June 2007 PT to illustrate my point.

First statement says something along the line of

If humans did not develop the ability to adapt to diverse environment, they would not have survived.

I interepreted this as a causal statement:

Having that ability caused humans to survive.

Yet it seems not the case...

How can we ever distinguish it?

[hornswaggle]

This isn't a causal argument. It's conditional. You can tell because the argument uses "if" and "then.

The argument is saying that the ability to adapt was necessary for survival. In other words, adaptation is a condition needed for survival.

The way that it's written in the passage translates to:
~adapt-->~survival

And the contrapositive is:

survival-->adapt

While the ability to adapt was necessary for survival, adaptation alone isn't enough to ensure survival. Humans needed other stuff like food, water, shelter, etc.

[tommywallach]

Well described, Hornswaggle.

It sounds obvious, but if you can't definitively write a sentence in your head that says "X causes Y," it's not causal, and thus doesn't belong in any kind of formal notation.

Hope that helps!

-t

[gplaya123]

Thank you for you both responses!

But, I still feel uneasy about it.

This is my rough rephrase of the first statement:

Without the development of ability to adapt to the diverse environments, humans would not survived.

I could see that how such development is necessary and all.

However, couldn't one also infer that such development caused the human to survive as well?

Is this conditionality comes from the language cue, "if and then," or from some other cue?

I am so confused...

Because in my head, above development at least causally contributed to the human survival...

[tommywallach]

Hey Gplaya,

Yeah, your reading is definitely not okay. It's like saying:

If I didn't eat that popsicle, I would have died.

There's no causation here. You can't say that eating the popsicle CAUSED me not to die, because that's illogical. Basically, if you see "if" (or a synonym), it's not causal, it's conditional.

-t

[LaurenP895]

I definitely see that as a conditional statement, but i was wondering, if it was presented as "human's ability to adapt to diverse environment increases the chances of survival" could this be interpreted as a causal statement?

[ohthatpatrick]

Definitely.

"X increases Y" is definitely causal.

[AmandH206]

Good question, but I don't know why.