Ockham divined the basic principle of justifiable causation, that arbitrary reasons may be eschewed, as that which could cause a phenomenon were not necessary to entertain, so much as things which were the inescapable cause.
This principle of parsimony is one of the great drivers of scientific investigation today, and the most quoted perhaps of the basic principles or philosophies of science and legal investigation. It is also known as the law of dualities, the theory of little green men, etc.. It can be restated in many ways. It could be called the law of evidence, the law of necessity or the law of multiple causation. Nothing which is not in evidence as having cause must be surmised because it could cause.
This leads to a difficulty in justifying proposed causation as in theories that are developed, or evidence that is searched for. In other words, pure deduction, rather than induction. The relief from this is to seek that which is necessary and to reject the unnecessary or duplicitous. Generalities must be sought that are concluded as the sole generator of the effect, and the necessarily sole generator. Looking for evidence not found so far is fine, but looking for cause where no evidence can be found for it, is not.
Such a philosophy rejects or advise caution in acceptance mere multi-factorial excuses for ignorance of causation. When looking for cause of cancer, heart disease and obesity in populations, the quite possible driver of modern changes to basic nutrition, is rejected by people who say the cause is multi-factorial and thus extremely difficult to track. In devising a basis for investigation, one might look to things which cause changes to body chemistry which have had changes in toxicity themselves -- and in that line of reasoning the best place to look is in what nourishes the cells that itself may be increased in toxicity. Food? Who woulda thot? This approach of simplicity does not reject other factors but asks for their explicit connection that shows a chain of evidence.
EC<:-} |
