Cause and Effect in Populations

A concept that I found interesting was cause and effect in populations. According to the Epstein text, "cause in populations is usually explained as meaning that given the cause, there's a higher probability that the effect will follow than if there were not the cause." If you have no specifics on the normal conditions then you go to statistical conclusions. Just like the example they used in the book about smoking, there are some people who smoke who don't get lung cancer and there are some people who smoke who do get lung cancer and when you're using an argument like "smoking causes lung cancer," we have no normal conditions for this, so we use statistics to better the argument. What I also found interesting about cause and effect in populations were the different experiments like the controlled experiment, uncontrolled experiment, and uncontrolled experiment from effect-to-cause. In an uncontrolled experiment we start with the suspected cause and see if the effect follows, but it's uncontrolled so people in the experiment may be doing something or make their own decisions that changes the outcome, there are more factors to consider. In a controlled experiment, people follow what they're supposed to do and don't do anything that they're not told to do.