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connected. But advertising may be having little or no effect on sales. The reason that sales have increased may be that a major competitor of the company went out of business. Another example occurs when John is speaking to Alice: “It’s plain to see that the recent spate of high school shootings is the result of viewing violent TV programming.” Who’s to say that the high school shootings are not instead the result of more lax gun laws, dwindling educational standards, or weakened religious following? (In this case, it is not A that is causing B but rather C that is causing B.) Or maybe a third factor is causing both A and B. For example, perhaps both the increase in high school shootings and the increase in violent TV programming are the result of a third factor, e.g., breakdown of the family unit. (In this latter case, it is not A that is causing B but rather C that is causing both A and B.)

VI. Reverse Causation

Does your favorite commercial author sell a lot of books because he or she is famous, or is he or she famous as a result of selling lots of books? Reverse causation is tricky. You think X is causing Y, but in reality it is Y that is causing X. The following example helps illustrate this point. Say you notice that a young woman at work named Sally is always working hard. And you say to yourself one day: “Sally is a hard worker. No wonder our boss gives her the toughest assignments.” The argument becomes, “Because Sally is such a hard worker, our boss gives her the toughest assignments.” But could the reverse be true? What if Sally is lazy and not naturally such a hard worker, but rather works hard only because she happens to be given the toughest projects? Now the argument becomes: “Because Sally is given such tough work projects, she is therefore forced to work hard!” Children may reveal funny examples to illuminate the concept of reverse causation. Young children may believe that firemen cause fires, for every time they see a picture or a video of a fire there are firemen at the scene. Eventually, the reverse is confirmed to be true: “Fires cause firemen.”

As an historical example, when researchers first started testing the hypothesis that “smoking causes cancer,” one of the first things they considered was the reverse hypothesis — the idea that people who have cancer might try smoking (i.e., cancer causes smoking). Not surprisingly, this hypothesis proved groundless. However, in many other situations it is difficult to distinguish between the cause and the effect. Consider the statement: “You’re good at the things you like.” The cause-and-effect argument becomes, “You like things [cause], and therefore you become good at them [effect].” But could it be that you find yourself good at some things and then learn to like them?

Implementation Assumptions

Some years ago, an article in a Western travel magazine stated: “Because air travel is becoming so convenient and because people have greater disposable incomes, soon everyone will have been to Africa to see the lions.”

Yet today, few people outside of Africa can claim to have been to Africa to see the lions. What accounts for the discrepancy between the travel magazine article and people actually going to visit Africa and the lions? Was the article wrong about plane travel becoming more convenient or people having higher levels of disposable income? The magazine was not likely wrong in these respects. However, the article was incorrect in its prediction that “everyone” (or, less literally, “many people”) would go to Africa to see the lions. The discrepancy between an otherwise sound plan and action is based on the assumption that a sound plan must necessarily achieve its desired result. This is not necessarily so.

Why do plans not always work? There are essentially four major reasons that plans do not work: (1) an individual or organization’s lack of desire, motivation, or perseverance; (2) an individual or organization’s lack of prerequisite skill or technological capability to carry out the plan; (3) lack of required opportunity or wherewithal