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Carts and Horses
Cause-and-effect is one of the first abstract ideas the human brain learns to deal with. The tiniest baby knows within his first few hours that if he cries, his mom will feed him. Even my little dogs know that if they bring me one of their chew toys at the right time of day, I’ll fix their supper. We know that the worst thing that can happen to a child is to be born into a family where this cause-and-effect dance doesn’t happen. We now know that neglect is far more damaging than abuse. To neglect a child is to break that all-important connection. The only power an infant has is his grasp of cause-and-effect; it gives him a tiny bit of control in an otherwise hostile world.
Conversely, cause and effect is one of the hardest ideas to prove, for our world is incredibly complex — every effect is just swimming in possible causes — often unforeseen and indemonstrable.
This is why it’s such a struggle to find solutions to our problems. To rectify an errant policy, we need to know what caused it, or at least we need to be able to forecast what ramifications a change in that policy will set off. We also need to know which is the cart and which the horse.
Thomas Sowell talks a lot about cause-and-effect and he points out that too often those making policy decisions don’t think past the first level; they’re oblivious to outcomes lurking behind the second and third levels of inquiry.
