david robertsJan 30, 2023

Strikes me that arguments over whether structural racism "caused" this or that event mirror arguments over whether climate change "caused" this or that event.

Wrote about that way back in 2012. https://grist.org/climate-change/did-climate-change-cause-the-colorado-wildfires/

Did climate change ’cause’ the Colorado wildfires?

The question of whether climate change "causes" certain events drives David Roberts a little nuts, but he tries to tackle it once and for all.

Grist
Show threaddavid robertsJan 30, 2023
The analogy I always use is, imagine you turned gravity up by 5%. More people would stumble. Would any given stumble be "caused" by the increase in gravity? Not proximally: there's always something closer, a pebble or uneven sidewalk, to point to that does more explanatory work.
Show threadStuart Presnell
@drvolts The analogy I prefer is doping in sports, because it’s more familiar and easier to think about. When a baseball player takes steroids they change his body in a way that tends to increase the number of home runs he hits. But we can’t say that any particular home run was “caused” by the doping, or that he wouldn’t have hit it if he hadn’t doped.
Feb 1, 2023 at 8:44amIvory for iOS