In this case, you are the only one who is not sick. The only difference between you and the others is that you didn`t make a salad. It`s probably the cause of other people`s illnesses. It is an application of the method of difference. This rule says that if you have a situation that leads to an effect, and another that does not, and the only difference is the presence of only one factor in the first situation, we can infer that factor as the cause of the effect. To see how each of the five methods works, we look at their practical application to a particular situation. Suppose an otherwise uneventful afternoon, the university nurse realizes that an unusual number of students suffer from severe digestive disorders. Of course, Ms. Hayes suspects that this symptom is due to something that the students ate for lunch, and I`m sure she wants to find out. The nurse wants to find evidence that supports a conclusion that “eat?xxxx? causes digestive problems. Mill methods can help. It is important to remember that the use of the scientific method attempts to confirm or disprove a hypothesis; However, this process must always be considered partial and temporary. The weight we give to a confirmation or rebuttal is never all or nothing.
We need to gather evidence over a long period of time. If we make mistakes, they are revealed by the results of repeated experiments. Mills methods should not come as a surprise, as these rules articulate some of the principles we use implicitly in causal reasoning in everyday life. But it is important to respect the limits of these rules. This situation is an example of Mills` common method of agreement and difference: the first four students are proof that all those who got sick had eaten coleslaw, and the four matching couples are proof that only those who fell ill had eaten coleslaw. This is a strong combination of the first two methods, as it tends to support our idea that real causes are necessary and that the conditions for their effects are sufficient. Knowledge expands when we can verify or distort a hypothesis. This is because experimental tests are designed in such a way that the hypothesis is probably a general explanation of certain facts and not an isolated case.
This type of experiment is controlled, which means that the experimental structures differ only from one variable (see the miles of difference method). The experimental group is the one that receives the variable, while the control group is not. Mills` methods are five methods of induction described by the philosopher John Stuart Mill in his book A System of Logic published in 1843. [1] They must shed light on issues of causation. Unlike the four previous inductive methods, the method of accompanying variation does not involve the elimination of any circumstances. The change in size of one factor causes another factor to change in size. Under the tailings method, if we have a number of factors that are assumed to be the causes of a number of effects, and we have reason to believe that all factors, with the exception of a factor C, are causes of all effects, with the exception of one, we should infer that C is the cause of the residual effect. Consider as an example of the two similar countries difference method. Country A has a centre-right government, a uniform system and was a former colony.
Country B has a centre-right government, a single system, but has never been a colony. The difference between countries is that Country A easily supports anti-colonial initiatives, while country B does not. The difference method would or would not identify the independent variable as the status of each country as a former colony, the dependent variable supporting anticolonial initiatives.