Can cause and effect be observed?

Like most people, for much of my life, I took cause and effect for granted. Then I read David Hume’s take on this, and I’ve never recovered. Hume says you can never actually see cause and effect. You can only assume it exists, based on the sequence in which things unfold. Hence the Latin warning: “post hoc ergo prompter hoc.” Don’t mistake order for cause.

Why then do most people, including most scientists, continue to insist that cause and effect does exist?

To begin with, natural things certainly do influence other things. Also, many things correlate to other things, meaning, they often co-occur with other things. Logic often supports these assumptions. Statistics, too.

None of this proves cause and effect actually exists though. All it proves is that we live in an infinitely complex and largely unknowable world, where all things do affect all other things, frequently in observable patterns.

But can’t we say these patterns prove “cause and effect” exists?

To claim this is a stretch at best. Why? Because science has not yet found a way to account for that pesky real world complexity, let alone the largely emergent nature of so much of the real world.

Think weather prediction.

Think falling in love.

Think stock market trends.

Think cooking great meals.

Please note, this lack of cause and effect need not cripple science. Here, it all depends on how you define your goals as a scientist.

Does your science rely on, and look to prove, cause and effect? Then you believe everything happens for reasons, and logic is your god.

Does your science look to increasingly know and observe the amazing nature of things? Then you believe everything happens in a beautiful ballet of inter-dependency, a magically mysterious, but oh so interesting, web of life.

The old science kills the frog to see how it works, never realizing the obvious; that life itself is an emergent property.

Real science honors the web of life, and seeks to destroy nothing.

Real science is the science of three-year-olds looking to discover beauty.