Helmets Prevent Injury by Preventing Biking

Your second short argument is due THU APR 03. It will make an argument essential to your Research Position Paper, which will be due THU APR 17, a week after your Rebuttal Argument, which will be due on THU APR 10. This sounds like a ridiculous amount of work over the next few weeks, but actually, it’s just a clever way to get you to finish a large portion of your Research Position Paper before the ultimate deadline.

I would not be surprised if you can use virtually all of your causation argument in your final paper to very good effect. So, try to think of next Thursday’s deadline as a chance to finish your final paper early.

This Causal Argument Essay will identify one or more cause-and-effect relationships essential to proving your thesis. We’ll talk today about the most likely causal arguments in each of your papers. Until now, you may not have thought of your particular paper as having much to do with causation, but by the end of the class I hope you’ll each have a good idea how to approach this project.

Causation Basics
We make causation statements all the time, without necessarily realizing that we’re engaged in argument and proof.
1) The Sixers lost because they didn’t rebound and turned the ball over too often
–Lack of possession caused the loss
2) His parents’ divorce made it difficult for Charles to form lasting relationships
–Early childhood trauma caused Charles’s three divorces
3) A dispute over abortion prevented the government from passing a budget
–A small detail kept a huge compromise from being finalized

Types of Causation Statements
Causation is complicated because life and the world are complex webs of interconnected activities all with consequences. Rarely does a single cause yield just one effect. Your job in writing causal arguments will often be to identify the most important of the several causes for one effect (or the several effects of a single cause).
1) Immediate Cause
–Deep philosophical differences between Republicans and Democrats caused the US Congress to have difficulty passing a budget last week. But tiny matters like the funding of a few abortions can be cited as the Immediate Cause of the last-minute budget crisis. So an immediate cause and a persistent conflict combine to create an episodic effect.
2) Remote Cause
–It’s been decades since Charles’s parents divorced, but the lingering effects of that childhood trauma do bedevil his relationships with women to this day. The immediate cause of his third divorce is that he visits hookers, but he blames the remote cause instead when he talks to his therapist.
3) Precipitating Cause
–Very similar to the immediate cause, the precipitating cause is the sudden change that allows an underlying cause to have its way with objects or events. We should say gravity caused the car to roll downhill into the bay, but we’ll probably say instead it was the failure of the brakes.
4) Contributing Cause
–The Sixers don’t have the skilled players to match up against the Celtics most nights, and that’s always the underlying cause for their losing when they do, but on this particular night, the turnovers and bad rebounding contributed to the skill mismatch to cause a loss.

Other Complications
Considering how many causes are usually in play to achieve any individual result, you’re not responsible to prove causation beyond a shadow of a doubt. Your demonstration of a likely cause, with evidence and reason, will suffice. Your “proof” will yield a probable cause, not a certain conclusion. That said, you will need to defend against oversimplification and false causation. Because they often occur together, correlations mimic causations; you never want to make the mistake of claiming that breakfast causes lunch.

Correlation as False Causation
Here’s a case study from Freakonomics. Annie does well in school because?:
–Annie always brings her lunch in a brown bag
–Annie gets nothing but support for good scholastic performance
–Annie’s parents are both brilliant
–Annie’s parents don’t let her watch much television
–Annie’s house is full of books
–Annie was born after a full 9-month gestation

• TV (NO) It turns out television viewing has little predictable correlation with strong academic performance, so even if both exist in Annie’s case, neither is likely to cause the other.
• Books (NO) House full of books? Not so much.
• Parents’ IQ (YES) But the IQ of parents does have a causal effect,
• Birth Weight (YES) and so does low birth weight.
• Lunch (NO) Bringing your own lunch? None at all.

The rules here are fuzzy, but the best refutation for your strongest argument is often that you’ve only demonstrated a correlation, not causation. Yes, most heroin addicts have smoked marijuana, but an even larger percentage of them drank soft drinks as a kid. Which one is causal?

What I Think
You’re under no obligation to accept my thesis recommendations, but after thinking about your research topics, I believe you might find it fruitful to ask the following questions or consider the following theories for your papers.

Saarah Prodani
Saarah doesn’t actually make a thesis claim in her proposal, so it’s hard to tell what her causal arguments would be. I surmise that since she is heavily influenced by a video called “What Babies Learn in the Womb,” she must accept the premise that babies do in fact learn before they’re born. This might be difficult to prove, but some evidence could be helpful. If, for example, babies are born with a preference for certain tastes or food types, we could use that to prove that they “acquired” those tastes by ingesting those food types through the umbilical cord. The tests for these sorts of claims are very subjective and dubious, so Saarah will need good clinical studies to overcome our natural inclination to doubt that what mommies say about their very special infants is in fact factual.

Lashawn Robinson
Lashawn’s thesis is also unclear at this point, so she too will have to clarify it before she writes a good Causal argument. The topic is “Sleeping On It,” and the general premise seems to be that decisions made after a night of sleep are “better” than snap judgments. But even that is not clear. It’s possible that any sort of distraction (sleep or concentration on some other, unrelated issue) gives the unconscious mind a chance to deliberate on the problem with improved results. Either way, she’ll have to find a way to define “better decisions” in a way that truly convinces readers she can prove that anything produces them. If studies exist that control for distraction and non-distraction, sleep and not-sleep, we’ll still have to know what “better” is.

Ryan Moyer
Ryan’s topic is the hateful rhetoric of the Westboro Baptist Church and its recently deceased leader, Fred Phelps, the lovely people who bring us the GOD HATES FAGS protests outside the funerals of servicemen. His thesis, not clearly stated in his Proposal, is spelled out clearly in his Definition essay, that the rabid protests produce support for gay rights advocates. While it’s altogether persuasive to claim that sympathetic humans will rally to defend a vulnerable class as it’s being attacked, the harder proof will be to demonstrate that this sympathy translates into support or advocacy for the vulnerable group. In other words, does our revulsion against the WBC, our abhorrence for their tactics, our outrage at their terrible lack of decency and decorum, even our compassion for their victims last longer than a moment of pity? Once the church members depart the funeral and we calm down, do our open hearts translate into a desire for justice for the targets of that hate we witnessed? We might just rally AGAINST the WBC without rallying TO SUPPORT the gay Americans they condemn.

Simone Stilley
Simone’s investigating something called “the paradox of choice,” which concludes that we are less, not more, satisfied when we’re given a wide range of options from which to choose. Her proposal makes a causal claim that she might be able to prove with enough evidence: that given a small number of choices, we accept that we’ll be compromising and are satisfied with an option that is good but not ideal; on the other hand, when presented with a plethora of options, we expect to find the perfect choice available and are therefore dissatisfied with the option we select because it’s not ideal. That’s more than enough argument for an essay the size we’re writing, but she hints that there are other explanations (other causes) too for our dissatisfaction: 1) the fear that we’re not knowledgeable enough to make the right choice, 2) the theory that we want to exercise SOME control over our decisions but not MUCH control, 3) the possibility that we’re paralyzed by trying to process too many choices and will make no choice at all just to avoid the exertion (and still end up dissatisfied because we wanted SOMETHING, not nothing). She may be able to structure her essay by claiming the paradox as a given, then arguing for the best, most logical explanation for its existence.

Alex LaVallee
Alex paints his thesis with a very broad brush, so it’s hard to pin down anything specific enough to summarize in a sentence, but in general, he’s not in favor of the efforts of Toms Shoes to do good in developing countries. His objections are several, and he’ll need to get selective to write a good paper, but the one that provides the best angle for a good causation argument is that donating shoes to the kids in a community undermines the local economy, thus doing more harm than good. That’s a very strong and damning causal claim that deserves to be either proved or disproved. Saying it certainly does not make it so. Plenty of critics make this complaint, and they cite examples of wrongheaded relief efforts as evidence, but those proofs are not persuasive; they merely support our prejudices and suspicions. My best recommendation would be to refute the claims of damage done to local economies and provide contrary evidence that the recipient communities benefit more than suffer from the donations of shoes.

Ryan Veltman
Ryan proposes that an eating plan or diet known as IIFYM (If It Fits Your Macros) is superior to diets that severely restrict food choices because it permits its followers to eat whatever they like provided they meet their macronutrient (carb, fat, and protein) requirements for the day. The primary result is that dieters can stick to the diet. But as a secondary result, he claims IIFYM dieters are as healthy as, or healthier than, followers of other diets because the body doesn’t discriminate TYPES of food, just amounts of macronutrients. I suggest he choose one carb (sugar), one fat (butter), and one protein (milk), to test this theory. The most common food comprised of those three macronutrients is fudge. Needless to say, he’ll have a hard time arguing that a diet of fudge alone will result in overall health. He might use this illustration to demonstrate that while such a diet might control WEIGHT (depending on the quantities consumed), it certainly can’t promote overall HEALTH.

Stephen Rivera-Lau
Stephen’s thesis is already causal. He claims that we’re more at risk of dying or sustaining serious injury from a thousand little everyday activities than from the major or catastrophic traumas (plane crash, terror attack) we are more likely to worry about. That’s all cause-and-effect thinking. What he doesn’t do much of is investigate what we can DO about the fact that daily activities are so dangerous. Maybe he could write an essay called “How to Live Forever,” in which he suggests common solutions to the dangers of everyday life. Maybe grab bars in the shower are more effective at saving lives than staying out of race cars. Maybe the seat we choose in an airliner is more important than who runs that airline, or to what country we fly, or the experience of the pilot. After all, if we’re wrong about the likely causes of our deaths, maybe we should spend some time finding the most likely causes and eliminating them.

Troi Barnes
Troi makes a causal claim as part of a very broad thesis she’ll need to narrow to make a persuasive argument: America’s poor conspire in their own exploitation. In other words, their own actions cause them to be exploited. They vote for politicians who then abandon them and their interests (It’s not clear what choice they have here). They accept whatever wages and work conditions they’re offered (It’s not clear what choice they have here). They receive less and less support from social service agencies (It’s not clear that this is even an action of theirs). The challenge for Troi, who has made a causal claim, will be to demonstrate that the opposite behavior would benefit the poor. (If they fail to vote, will someone champion their cause?) (If they refuse the work, will they benefit?) (If they stop seeking services, will more help come to them?) If she can’t find alternatives to break the causal chain, she’ll be left saying, “Hey, it’s like gravity. Things fall. What can you do?”

Vinny Colantuoni
Vinny’s analysis of the Monty Hall Problem is almost entirely causal. He’ll be arguing the counterintuitive thesis that game players improve their odds of finding a car behind one of three doors by changing their choice (a demonstrable causal effect) when they’re shown that one of two unchosen doors contains a goat. Intuition says there’s no benefit to switching. Logical reasoning proves that there is. Vinny’s challenge is not to find evidence of causation but to carefully explain it so that it can be comprehended and eventually embraced by a doubtful reader. Examples will be helpful; a chart is almost required.

Marcus Patterson
Angela Kotala
John Gross
Marcus and Angela and John all want to prove—contrary to our Declaration of Independence, which declares our unalienable right to “the pursuit of happiness”—that happiness is not a goal that can be pursued. Either that or they mean to prove that the pursuit of happiness can itself be happiness. Either that or they mean to prove that happiness is a process, not a goal, or that a “meaningful life” with a “sense of purpose” is preferable to “mere” happiness. Or something else. They might want to talk with Simone Stilley about the Paradox of Choice. Maybe the harder we strive toward unattainable goals the more likely we are to feel deprived, the more like failures. That’s a simple, if fuzzy, cause/effect relationship that would explain most of the material they’ve been presenting so far.

Ben Balesteri
Ben’s thesis is that we are deceived by the nature of the circus, which pretends to be a celebration of the amazing abilities of animals to cheerfully perform the feats they’ve proudly learned to delight us (that may be laying it on a bit thick), when in fact it’s a wanton display of the results of a life of torture for animals who have been whipped, starved, cattle-prodded and otherwise abused into submission. The “happiest show on earth” will come the day the animals revolt and slaughter their handlers. The maltreatment is easy to document and might not present much challenge. The cause and effect (besides that the torture—the cause—results in joyless performance—the effect) worth pursuing might be the effect of the show on its audience. We are taught several wrong lessons, aren’t we, Ben? That these massive beasts are “tamable”? That they somehow collaborate with us? That we have dominion over them? That they are our legitimate toys? That we are somehow preserving them by “rescuing” them from the terrible wild? Can you enumerate a dozen or so more?

Drew Mueller
Suicide isn’t murder, it’s a senseless killing. Drew’s thesis appears to be that suicide is entirely preventable. So the suicide is his effect, and the causes he will investigate in turn to demonstrate that they are all addressable. Eliminate the causes for suicide by first identifying and understanding them, and the effect will disappear. But before he gets started, he wants to assure us what suicide is not. Now either of these approaches might overwhelm a single paper; the combination is certainly too big for a short argument. Reading his descriptions of his sources, clearly he has more support for arguing what suicide is not. I would welcome such a paper. We Will Never Prevent Suicide Because We’re Wrong About What Causes It.

Benjamin Sharapoff
PTSD is Contagious. Benjamin has a bit of a problem because he devoted much of his Definition essay to explaining the causes of secondary PTSD. Here’s what I’d recommend to bring some vitality and personality into his research. Do a side-by-side accounting of the Traumas faced by Dad in combat and his Son back home when Dad returns. How much is living with Dad (his nightmares, his day terrors, his unprovoked anger, his bursts of violence, his paranoia, his hypervigilance, his menu of symptoms) like living in a combat zone? Take us as much as possible through the day of the spouse or child of that traumatized, shell-shocked loved one who won’t stop threatening the safety of the household but also won’t go away. Show us the causes so we’ll understand the effects.

Luke Meola
Protein Supplements are Dangerous and Unhealthy. Luke’s argument is strictly scientific, so his evidence will have to be scientific. He claims protein supplements are dangerous, but vague claims like “liver damage” aren’t persuasive to mildly demanding readers. Onions are supposedly “bad for” my dog, but until somebody makes an actual, responsible claim to distinguish “destroys liver function” from “gives the dog unpleasant breath,” I’m not inclined to deny him something he likes. “Build up of ketones” sounds impressive, but only if ketones are really dangerous. Luke promises to provide “the good side” of supplements too, but this offer is irrelevant to the argument. He could deflect the good news in a phrase: “Except for consumers who don’t get enough natural protein in their diets, protein supplements are at best an expensive and worthless habit, at worst an inexcusable health risk.”

Josue Johnson
Support for Child Euthanasia. Josue makes two primary claims in his proposal, one causal and one ethical. Ethically, he argues that a patient’s age is irrelevant to end-of-life decisions. Causally, he proposes to refute someone else’s causal chain. Opponents of the law permitting children of any age to request and receive permission to hasten the end of their lives worry that removing the age restriction will result in a consensual massacre. They must think multitudes of children for whatever reason are only staying alive because they haven’t been given permission to kill themselves, haven’t been matched to a doctor willing to deliver them their desired demises. This objection is such a powerful visceral refutation of the rightness of Josue’s more compassionate position that once he counters it, the majority of his opponents will have to surrender. So his course is clear.

Erik Obsteins
Contraindications for Multivitamins. Well, they’re useless, expensive, and can kill us. Those are some serious contraindications. Like Luke’s, Erik’s argument is scientific, so his evidence and his causal argument will be scientific. He doesn’t need to define vitamins; he needs to define vitamin overdose. He doesn’t need to define beneficial actions of vitamins on undernourished bodies; he needs to demonstrate the toxic effects of too many vitamins on well-nourished bodies. He will help himself too by illustrating how, to supplement low dietary vitamin B, for example, a multivitamin containing B might 1) not contain the right B to solve the problem, and furthermore 2) contain way too much of several other vitamins whose detrimental effects outweigh what would have been the benefits of taking the right single vitamin as a supplement.

Taylor LaCorte
Taylor thinks men have been in charge of defining rape long enough. She devotes considerable space to enumerating some of the insane male attitudes toward rape that would be funny if they weren’t so frighteningly misinformed. While there are not necessarily causal claims per se in her theses, causal arguments can certainly be made from the claims made here. Taylor could say, for example, that rapists go free when legislators, judges, and prosecutors are primarily male. She could identify the dehumanizing, devaluing, decriminalizing effects of an archaic definition of rape. The definition is far more important than a semantic exercise. It is legal language with very specific statutory requirements for law enforcement. Criminals have been exonerated by a reliance on fundamental flaws in the definition of what means consent, and when persuasion becomes coercion. Such are the effects of leftover language that causes behavior to be interpreted in the criminals’ favor.

Casmir Reihing
Casmir promises to “talk about” genedercide in general and about infanticide in China and India in particular. In other words, she makes the classic error of failing to make an actual proposal or provide a thesis. Therefore, we cannot know whether she considers China’s one-child policy, for example, to be an effect of some historical cause, or whether she wants to argue that it will have some unintended consequences. Rather than provide a general survey of gendercide (for what reason?) she will be wise to choose a much narrower topic and make a specific argument. For example: What message does it send to Chinese girls that so many of them are killed before they can mature by a society that vastly prefers male children? How many generations will they have to suffer this underclass status before they begin to achieve equality? Are there any indications of a turnaround in this national attitude?

Works Cited
Cite 3-5 sources for your Causal Argument Essay. It’s possible they’ll be repeats of earlier-cited sources, but consider it an opportunity to impress me by adding new legitimate sources for this new paper. If they are new, identify them before the citation as: NEW SOURCE.

ASSIGNMENT SPECIFICS

• Write your second Shorter Argument paper.
• The paper will take the form of a Causal Argument as described above.
• Identify and explain the strongest cause and effect sequence in your argument.
• Anticipate and refute rebuttals to your causal analysis if necessary.
• Include Works Cited.
• Call your post Causal Essay—Author Name.
• But in addition to that placeholder title, also give your essay a proper title. For example, this post is titled “Helmets Prevent Injury by Preventing Biking.”
• Publish your causal essay in the A10: Causal Essay category.

GRADE DETAILS

• DUE THU APR 03 before class.
• Customary late penalties. (0-24 hours 10%) (24-48 hours 20%) (48+ hours, 0 grade)
• Shorter Arguments grade category (20%)