Critical Thinking/Writing

The Tiger Explains

"Look," said the tiger apologetically, "if I'd known that coffee table was a problem, I'd have told you. Frankly, I thought it was all part of the Dr. Paranoia service package."
"You mean like a free mauling with every checkup?" asked the doctor.
"Quite."
"Well anyway," the wizard added, "we've explained the attacks, so... "
"You haven't, you know." the tiger put in
"Haven't what?"
"Haven't explained the attacks."
"Huh? But the coffee table..."
"You've found the cause, I'll grant you that, but you haven't explained anything."
"What's the difference?" The wizard was getting annoyed. Purple sparks began popping up from under his collar.
"A cause is whatever factor made the event happen. An explanation is a story that connects some particular event or condition (explanandum) to some other event, condition or process that we're already familiar with."
"Aren't those the same thing?"
"Not always." The tiger bared her fangs thoughtfully. "Take that coffee table for instance. Say we're sure it was the cause of the dishevelled patients. Does knowing that tell us a story that connects those events to some other event, condition or process that we're already familiar with"
"I'm familiar with that coffee table," put in Dr. Paranoia. "I've had it for years."
"Would a reasonable person say 'of course, why didn't I think of the coffee table.'?"
"I don't know. I don't know any reasonable people."
"Well," growled the tiger, "most people are familiar with coffee tables as things that just sit there holding up magazines, and not as things that attack people!"
"Oh."
"So saying 'it was the coffee table' is not going to satisfy most people. They'll ask 'but how could it be the coffee table?'"
"I get it!" The wizard grinned. "But if you said 'it was the tiger' people would say 'oh, of course, the tiger.'"
"Not if they knew me," the tiger replied grumpily.
"So if they grew up believing that coffee tables were dangerous... "
"Well, ah, um... "
"... they'd be satisfied by me saying 'it was the coffee table'" the wizard concluded triumphantly.
"Yes, they would," the tiger replied thoughtfully, "but they'd be wrong to be satisfied."
"What?" The wizard's head detached itself from his shoulders in surprise. "Didn't you say that a explanation connects some event with other things that are familiar to us?"
"Yes, but would those people really be familar with coffee tables that attack people?"
"I dunno," the wizard's body began leaping around the room after his head. "I'm a fictional character, after all."
"Well let's imagine some real people, living in the real world, who, for some bizarre reason, have all grown up believing that coffee tables attack people."
"Gotcha!... um, a little help here?" The wizard's body had tripped over the corpse of the wild coffee table.
"Now, since this is the real world," the tiger said carefully, "real coffee tables don't actually attack people, do they?"
"Um, I guess not," Dr. Paranoia helped the wizard's body stand up again.
"So those people, call them 'coffeetablians', aren't really familiar with aggressive coffee tables, are they?" The tiger reared up on her hind legs and began batting the wizard's head back and forth with her front paws.
"What do you - ouch - mean?"
"Oops, sorry. Cat reflex." The tiger said contritely. "What I mean is that none of these people will have actually experienced a coffee table attack. They'll just be familiar with telling each other false stories about coffee table attacks and laughing at non-coffeetablians... "
"Just like the marijuana eradication cops!" Dr. Paranoia put in excitedly. "They run around arresting people and ruining people's lives and doing nobody any good, but believe they're saving the world because they tell each other nonsensical stories about marijuana being a threshold drug and other falsehoods. They live in a world where the othodoxy is "marijuana is evil" even though there's no actual experience of marijuana causing any of these horrible things!"
"That's a awfully realistic example," the Mad Wizard's head frowned down from the ceiling. "This is a fantasy, you know."
"Sorry," replied the abashed Dr. Paranoia. "Won't happen again."
"Well," the tiger put in soothingly, "that is the kind of thing I was talking about. People who live in fantasy worlds will accept a bad explanation if it connects the explanandum to their fantasies, and will reject a good explanation if it contradicts any part of their fantasy world."
"So what's a good explanation." The Mad Wizard's head had floated into a corner of the room. It stared dolefully down at his body, which was just a little bit too short to grasp it properly.
"And how is all this related to arguments?" Dr. Paranoia added.
"Well," the tiger replied thoughtfully, "I think this will work better if I answer the second question first." The tiger reached behind Dr. Parnoia's ear and pulled out a laptop computer and a video projector. While the tiger was setting up her equipment on the dead coffee table, the Mad Wizard's body extended one hand far enough that the Wizard's head could bite down on the tip of one finger. The body then pulled in his hand, and twisted it to set the Wizard's head back on his shoulders. "Ahhhhh," said the wizard.
"Okay," said the tiger finally. "Say we have four, and only four, possible explanations for some event. Now say that we find out things that show that the first three explanations can't be true. What would that tell us about the fourth explanation?"
"Um, that it's true?" said the wizard.
"Right? Which means that the fact that some explanation is the only explanation of some event is in itself a pretty good argument that that explanation is true."
"Oooooooooh!" Said the wizard and the doctor together."
"So," the tiger displayed her first power-point slide, "an argument from explanation has the following form."

Phenomenon P happens.
Explanation E is a good explanation for phenomenon P
No other good explanation exists.

Explanation E is true.

"Notice that it's not enough for E to explain P. P must happen. E must be a good explanation, and E must be the only good explanation." The tiger took out a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and put them on. "For instance ... "

Argument A
Alien Abduction Experiences happen.
"Earth-visiting aliens exist" is a good explanation for Alien Abduction Experiences
No other good explanation exists.

It is true that Earth-visiting aliens exist

"Wait a moment!" The wizard jumped up. "Doesn't your first premise just say that alien abductions happen"
"No," replied the tiger, smiling. "It says that a certain kind of experience happens. People who have these experiences call them 'alien abductions' because they see and feel things that make it seem like they're being abducted."
"I thought they were just looneys," put in the doctor.
"You should talk," replied the tiger. She waved a placating paw at the irate doctor. "No, no, most of the people who report these experiences have no symptoms of mental defect..."
"Except for the obvious!" The wizard interrupted, waving his wand at the tiger's laptop. "Look at this!"

Argument B
Alien Abduction Experiences happen.
"They're all looneys" is a good explanation for Alien Abduction Experiences
No other good explanation exists.

It is true that they're all looneys

"There is another explanation," Dr. Paranoia put in thoughtfully. These experiences could be caused by Fnorbert.

Argument C
Alien Abduction Experiences happen.
"Fnorbert did it" is a good explanation for Alien Abduction Experiences
No other good explanation exists.

It is true that Fnorbert exists.

"Wait up!" cried the Wizard, "how on Earth is 'Fnorbert did it' a good explanation for this stuff?"
"Well Fnorbert, if he exists, can do anything, so he could have made these experiences happen."
"So could Vuntag, or Phobodisda!, or any of an infinite number of other possible deities," retorted the Wizard.
"I guess so," admitted the Doctor.
"So now we have an infinite number of possible explanations!" The Wizard emitted green smoke in frustration.
"Well, this leads us neatly to the question of what makes something a good explanation," added the tiger. Oh, and just for purposes of discussion, let me add the following possible explanation."

Argument D
Alien Abduction Experiences happen.
"Abraham Lincoln did it" is a good explanation for Alien Abduction Experiences
No other good explanation exists.

It is true that Fnorbert exists.

"Now, here's what I think are the properties of a good explanation," the Tiger continued blandly.

A Good Explanation

1. Is not provably false.

2. The explanans (explaining thing) is logically coherent with the explanandum (the thing we're trying to explain.)

3. Is noncircular. (It's not just describing the phenomenon in different words, and not importing features from the.)

4. Is precise enough to be useful, and to tell us more than we knew already.

5. Is testable. (It gives us some way to check directly whether or not it's true)

6. Explains more of what needs to be explained than it's competitors.

7. Gives a causal mechanism that allows us to see how the explanation makes the phenomenon happen.

8. Is reasonably consistent with our established background knowledge.

9. Requires relatively few ad hoc assumptions.

"That's an awful lot of 'usually' and 'reasonably' and 'relatively'" Dr. Paranoia pointed out.
"True," agreed the tiger. "'good' is often a relative term here. Sometimes 'good explanation' just means 'good when compared to all the other explanations.' And some of these criteria overlap a bit, so it might be good to see some of them as looking at the same thing from a different point of view. So let's compare the explanations we've got so far."
"Point one," the wizard began thoughtfully. "What does 'provably false' mean?"
"Well, if any explanation is based on any fact that turns out to be false, then that explanation couldn't be right, could it?"
"So that's why you included 'Abraham Lincoln did it' as a possible explanation," murmured the doctor.
"Exactly!" replied the tiger. "Since we can prove that Abraham Lincoln is dead, and that he, as a normal human being, would be unable to cause these experiences even if he was alive, we can put this explanation at the bottom of the heap."
"Can't we eliminate it altogether?" The wizard asked.
"You never eliminate an explanation altogether, because it's always possible that every other explanation will turn out to be worse, or that some new facts will turn up that make the explanation look a lot better. But most explanations that go to the bottom of the stack stay there, so they're as good as eliminated for all practical purposes. If we eliminate all the other explanations, we'll look at Abraham Lincoln again. Otherwise, we won't have to."
"So," said the wizard consideringly, "if we had a good argument against one of the other explanations..."
"That would make that one a worse explanation also."
"How about a burden of proof argument?" the wizard asked hopefully.
"Sorry," the tiger shook here head. "That would only work if the explanation in question had no positive argument for it. But each one does have a positive argument, an argument by explanation."
"Oh, of course."
"So, given the fact that we have a reason to think that aliens exist, which is also a reason to think that these people are looneys, we can't say that either of them fails to meet their initial burden of proof." The tiger folded her arms contemplatively. "Can you prove that there are no aliens anywhere in the universe?"
"Well, Duuuhhh, NO!" Replied the wizard sarcastically.
"Can you prove they never visit?"
"How could I prove something like that?" The wizard asked grouchily.
"Well, you could have video cameras covering the skies over all the world, video cameras inside everyone's bedroom, radar dishes..."
"I can't do that!" gasped the wizard. "I'm a wizard, not the US government."
"So the 'aliens' theory isn't provably false." The tiger tilted her head thoughtfully. "Neither is the 'looney' theory. Well, on to point four."
"What is 'logical coherence' anyway?" the wizard asked.
"It's hard to explain. Actually, I think that all the points we cover here are basically aspects of logical coherence, but they're easier to explain as seperate points."
"Is it the same as 'logical consistency'?" the doctor asked helpfully. "You know, two claims are logically consistent if the truth of one wouldn't make the other one likely to be false. As in 'the NBA is the only national basketball league in the US' is consistent with 'cottage cheese exists,' but not with 'the Hoop Monsters League is a national basketball league in the US.' because if the HML is a league, then the NBA isn't the only national basketball league."
"Well, that's consistency all right," the tiger replied carefully, "but coherence includes something more than just consistency. Two claims are coherent if both they are consistent, and each is inconsistent with the negation of the other."
"So 'the NBA is the only national basketball league in the US' is not coherent with 'cottage cheese exists' because 'the NBA is not the only national basketball league in the US' is not inconsistent with 'cottage cheese exists.'"
"Right," replied the tiger. "Now, let's look at 'Fnorbert did it.' Does Fnorbert have any properties such that, if he didn't have them, alien abduction experiences would be less likely to happen?"
"Um, he says that anything done while wearing a paper hat is morally wrong," the doctor replied hopefully.
"If he didn't say that, would him not saying it be inconsistent with alien abduction experiences happening?"
"Um, no."
"So 'Fnorbert did it' isn't logically coherent with what it's supposed to explain, is it?"
"I guess not.""Right," replied the tiger. "Now, let's look at 'Fnorbert did it.' Does Fnorbert have any properties such that, if he didn't have them, alien abduction experiences
would be less likely to happen?"
"Sure," replied the doctor. "The property of making alien abduction experiences happen. If he didn't have that property, then alien abduction experiences wouldn't happen."
"Why not?" The tiger asked with a sly grin.
"Because Fnorbert is what makes alien abduction experiences happen."
"And how do we know this?"
"Because Fnorbert is the only... oooooo!"
"Right," said the tiger. "You cannot say that Fnorbert has the property of making alien abduction experiences happen until after you prove that he has that property. Otherwise, you are just begging the question. Does Fnorbert have any other properties that might be inconsistent with a lack of alien abduction experiences?"
"Say what?"
"Hmmmm," said the tiger. "Here's another way of looking at coherence. Two things are coherent if understanding the one thing meant that it would be really weird if the second thing didn't happen. Say you knew that the water system in your house was really old and corroded, and that there had just been a violent earthquake."
"Okay."
"Now imagine that you just went over all your pipes, and there were no leaks whatsoever."
"That's weird!"
"Exactly!" the tiger smiled. "The idea of an old, corroded, shook-up water system is coherent with the idea of leaky pipes because it would be weird if those old, corroded, shook-up water pipes didn't leak."
"So Fnorbert would be coherent with alien abduction experiences if there was something I could tell you about Fnorbert that would make it weird if alien abduction experiences didn't happen?"
"Right!" the tiger nodded encouragingly.
"Um, he says that anything done while wearing a paper hat is morally wrong," the doctor replied hopefully.
"Would him not saying it be inconsistent with alien abduction experiences happening?"
"Um, no."
"Given that he says it, would it be weird if alien abduction experiences didn't happen?"
"Ummmmm... y - no."
"So 'Fnorbert did it' isn't logically coherent with what it's supposed to explain, is it?"
"I guess not."
"I don't understand this coherence business!" Grumbled the wizard.
"Okay," replied the tiger, "let's look at it from the point of view of vagueness."
Point three," the tiger took time to smile wickedly, "'looney' is a really vague term, isn't it. Can you come up with something more prescise?"
"Delusional."
"What does that mean?"
"Has hallucinations," the wizard replied crossly.
"Such as?"
"Hallucinations of alien abductions for Pan's sake!" Blue sparks sprang from the wizards eyebrows.
"So it's not a specific disorder, like Schizophrenia or Bipolar Affective Disorder?"
"No." The wizard glowered, emitting purple smoke. (It's best you don't know where the smoke came from.)
"Okay, then, what about the other explanation?"
"Isn't 'aliens' pretty vague?" asked the doctor. "They don't say where the aliens are from. They could be from Aldebaran, Arcturus, Betelgueuse... "
"Betelgueuse has no inhabited planets," put in the wizard.
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. I was there last week. Just an automated filling station and a hyper-sharp cheese storeage depot."
"Oh, that cheese is dangerous. I remember one time... "
"Gentlemen," purred the tiger. "The term 'aliens' isn't really vague because we don't have commonly recognized categories of aliens, whereas for 'looney,' we have lots of different types and categories. And the term 'alien' does distinguish these abductors from say, cowboys, or ninjas, or quantity surveyors."
"I suppose so. The 'alien' explanalion is less vague than the 'loony' explanation."
"Now, point three," the tiger went on smoothly. "Isn't 'has hallucinations of alien abductions' the same thing as 'imagines that one is being abducted by aliens'?"
"Ooooh," said the doctor. "It is the same thing in different words."
"Thanks a lot," groused the wizard.
"But 'was actually abducted by aliens' is different from 'had an experience that seemed like abduction.'"
"True," admitted the wizard. "So the 'alien' explanation is less circular than the 'loony' explanation. At least, the looney explanation got circular when I tried to make it more precise."
"Okay, point five," the tiger continued. "Is the looney explanation testable?"
"Well, we could administer tests, and look for symptoms of psychological disorder." The doctor put in brightly.
"Yes, and guess what?" The tiger smiled a sly little smile.
"Don't tell me," the wizard groaned, "the 'abductees' showed no signs of mental defect apart from reporting abduction experiences?"
"Yep."
"Okay, so what about point six. How much does the 'aliens' theory explain compared to my 'looney' theory?"
"Well, your theory explains the existance of the experiences, but that's about it. The aliens theory explains a bit more, in that it explains why people think they're abducted, and why it seems to be done by aliens."
"So," the wizard sighed out a rueful cloud of yellow smoke, "the aliens theory wins again."
"Point seven," the tiger rubbed her paws together briskly. "Is there a causal mechanism?"
"I know" the doctor put in excitedly, "the aliens caused the experience by abducting the people."
"How?" the wizard asked slyly.
"In a spaceship, obviously."
"Which works how?" the wizard smirked.
"Well... "
"Exactly!" the tiger put in with a friendly smile. "We know of no machinery that will produce the effects reported by abductees, which include seeing aliens walk in through walls and being mysteriously paralyzed. Because these experiences are reported by people living in all kinds of places the fact that abduction reports don't coincide with strange noises, burned patches or UFO sightings means that these spaceships must be capable of flying silently, of invisibility, of landing in very small spaces and of taking off without leaving any marks."
"I wish I had one of those," mused the doctor.
"So," concluded the tiger, "while the 'aliens' theory does give a mechanism - spaceships - to explain how the aliens get about, it doesn't explain how these spaceships work."
"But," added the wizard glumly, "the 'looney' explanation doesn't give a mechanism either."
"Right, replied the tiger. "It just says 'hallucinations' and leaves it at that without saying where these hallucinations come from or why they have the shape they do. So the 'aliens' theory has a little more of a mechanism."
"So on to point eight," the wizard added sadly. "I suppose... hey!"
"What?"
"The looney theory wins this one!" The wizard was momentarily concealed by a cloud of happy red smoke shot through with joyful purple sparks. "Hallunciations and mental problems are sooooooo consistent with our background knowledge!"
"And silent, invisible, spaceships are not!" The doctor added.
"Right," added the tiger. "There are lots and lots of well-documented cases of hallucinations and other similar medically-caused phenomena. But there are no documented cases of any kind of machines doing what those aliens would have to do."
"And doesn't it go deeper than that?" added the wizard.
"You mean, the 'looney' theory is consistent with our best established psychological theories, while the 'aliens' explanation is inconsistent with our best established physical theories."
"I wanted to say that," groused the wizard.
"Did you also want to say that the 'aliens' explanation violates relativity and quantum mechanics because it seems to require faster than light travel?"
"Yes!"
"Well, you'd be wrong to say it," the tiger interrupted firmly. "Because those theories rest on the well-documented cases we talked about before."
"Huh?"
"We only think those theories are true because the majority of documented cases are consistent with the theories. So to say 'it violates a true theory' is just the same as saying 'it conflicts with the majority of documented cases.' Either way, it just conflicts with our background knowledge. So saying 'conflicts with theory' is just a more pretentious way of saying 'conflicts with background knowledge.' It doesn't go any deeper, it just sounds more impressive to people who don't know about science."
"Well, okay," the wizard muttered, "but I still wish I'd said it."
"Last point!" The tiger stretched luxuriously. "Ad hockery."
"Um, I'm not really into sports," the wizard said.
"No no!" The tiger held up her front paws. "I mean, how many 'ad hoc' assumptions does each theory have?"
"What's an 'ad-hoc' assumption?"
"'Ad hoc'" replied the tiger firmly. "There's no hyphen."
"Okay, 'ad hoc' then."
"It's something you make up on the spot to explain away a hole in your theory."
"You mean like an excuse?"
"Exactly."
"Well, my theory has just one ad hoc," the wizard said carefully. "I have to find an excuse for the fact that the subjects have just the alien abduction hallucinations, and no other symptoms. No, wait, I have to explain why they hallucinate aliens and not cowboys or chimney sweeps."
"Maybe they just report the alien hallucinations," Dr. Paranoia added helpfully. "People who report alien abductions get a very sympathetic hearing in early 21st century America. I can't imagine someone who reported a chimney-sweep abduction would get much support."
"So, is that an ad hoc assumption?" asked the wizard.
"Actually," replied the tiger carefully, "it's a bit too reasonable to be an ad hoc. Ad hocs are usually way-out-there kinds of things."
"Like a special kind of mental problem that only causes abduction experiences?"
"Right, that would be an ad hoc," agreed the tiger.
"... and temporary paralysis." The wizard added. "I forgot about the paralysis."
"True," replied the tiger. "That makes two ad hocs for your theory."
"Ouch!" grimaced the wizard.
"But on the other hand, the 'aliens' theory is swarming with ad hocs. Silent propulsion. Invisible ships. Paralysis devices. Walk-through-wall devices. Faster than light travel... "
"Or a mother ship that traveled slower than light and got here just after WWII," put in Dr. Paranoia.
"Sure," the tiger shrugged, "That wouldn't even be an ad hoc, I guess."
"Hang on," added the doctor. "I have an answer to those other ad hocs that is itself not an ad hoc."
"Go on."
"Well, those things need explanations because they don't fit our background knowledge, right?"
"Right."
"But the 'aliens' theory has an explanation for that! Those things don't fit our background knowledge because the aliens aren't from the same place we are! Those things were invented someplace else, so they couldn't be part of our background knowledge."
"Now wait," put in the wizard. "That implies that our background knowedge is largely wrong. How could that be?"
"Well, remember the native Americans's experience with firearms. Their background knowledge didn't include cannons and arquebuses, but those things worked anyway."
"Hrrmpth," the wizard grumbled. "Our science would have to be waaaay underdeveloped to be that far off."
"But it could be."
"I suppose," the wizard admitted. He turned to the tiger. "So, which explanation is better?"
"Well," said the tiger carefully. "I don't think either of them are much good. The 'aliens' theory wins points one through five, while the 'looney' theory wins points six and seven. Unfortunately, both theories have too much ad hockery to really do the job. And the 'looney' theory has to explain why we don't already know about this kind of insanity."
"So?"
"So, if anything, the 'aliens' theory seems marginally better." The tiger smiled slyly. "If those two were the only available explanations, we'd have a not-too-bad argument for the existence of aliens."
"But... ?" hinted the wizard.
"But we have another explanation." The tiger smiled, showing all her teeth. "There's this well-documented phenomenon called sleep paralysis. People who experience it feel like they're awake and seem to see their real surroundings, but they can't move, and they have realistic hallucinations based on things they've been thinking about. Could this explain the abduction experiences?"
"I suppose," replied the wizard cautiously.
"Well, let's analyze the explanation."
"No thanks," replied the doctor and the wizard together. "We're tired of this game."
"Well," said the tiger huffily, "I'm not going to do it on my own."
"Let the reader do it," suggested the doctor.
"Yes, it will help him or her prepare for the next lecture," added the wizard. "Hint, hint."

Here are the points of analysis for an explanation. Does the 'sleep paralysis' explanation meet these criteria?

A Good Explanation

1. Is not provably false.

2. Is logically coherent with the explanandum (the thing we're trying to explain.)

3. Is noncircular. (It's not just describing the phenomenon in different words, and not importing features from the.)

4. Is precise enough to be useful, and to tell us more than we knew already.

5. Is testable. (It gives us some way to check directly whether or not it's true)

6. Explains more of what needs to be explained than it's competitors.

7. Gives a causal mechanism that allows us to see how the explanation makes the phenomenon happen.

8. Is reasonably consistent with our established background knowledge.

9. Requires relatively few ad hoc assumptions.

The tiger, the wizard and the doctor all went to a nightclub together. When they all had their drinks, the wizard leaned forward and pulled the tiger's whiskers, saying "You know, I'll bet there are some good fallacies associated with this argument by explanation business."
"Well," replied the tiger, pulling her whiskers free of the wizard's claw, "I suppose we could define several fallacies based on the criteria given above. for instance, there'd be a fallacy of false explanation when an explanation is clearly false."
"So, there'd be a fallacy from vagueness," Dr. Paranoia put in. "We could call it the fallacy of vague pseudoexplanation."

The reason that the garbage is spread all over the lawn is due to some kind of scattering agency.

The plant is not thriving because there's some kind of inhibitor around.

"And a fallacy from circularity," The wizard added. "Which we could call the fallacy of circular pseudoexplanation."

The reason the milk spilled was because the glass tipped over and the milk came out.

The car crashed because it hit another object with sufficient force to stop it from moving

"And a fallacy... "
"Wait wait wait," the tiger interrupted. There's only two really important fallacies here. They're called empty explanation and suppressed competitor."
"How do they work?
"Well, empty explanation is the fallacy of offering an "explanation" that doesn't actually explain anything. It's basically a form of begging the question. Kind of. It's not circular because it offers a seperate reason for the explanadum, but this reason raises at least as many questions as it answers."

The reason the rocket crashed is quite simple. It was gremlins.

You want to know why the weather cleared up right now? My uncle Ted did it.

"Notice that the addition of detail doesn't help."

Gremlins are invisible flying creatures that get into electronic devices and make them malfunction.

My Uncle Ted has the power to control the weather. He doesn't always feel like it, and sometimes it doesn't work, but he definitely can do it any time he really wants.

"Of course, it's not testable."

No, you can't see, hear or feel the gremlins.

I told you, Uncle Ted doesn't always feel like controlling the weather.

"and making it explain more doesn't help."

Gremlins don't just affect electronics, they make airline food taste bad too.

Uncle Ted has other powers, you know. Like those good parking spaces you found last week, Uncle Ted was feeling generous, and he likes you, so he fixed them up for you.

"The real kicker is, of course, is that there is no causal mechanism."

The gremlins just do it because they're gremlins. That's what gremlins do, dummy!

Uncle Ted doesn't know how he does what he does. It's just a mystery.

"This is more important than lack of consistency with background knowledge, because..."
"Watch out!" cried the doctor suddenly. "The coffee table, it's... "
At that moment, the bullet-riddled piece of furniture sprang to its legs, snarled "you'll never get me, coppers!" and leaped through the window. The three friends ran to the window in time to see the coffee table scampering away down the street. The wizard tried a few shots from his wand, but the blue bolts did no more than turn a few cars into toadstools.
"Well, that was a surprise," the tiger commented ruefully.
"Yeah," added the doctor. "I wouldn't have thought a coffee table could impersonate Edward G. Robinson."
"Wasn't a very good impression," the wizard commented.
"Yeah, but the amazing thing is that my coffee table could impersonate a once-famous character actor, (beloved and much-imitated for his portrayals of 1920's gangsters) at all! I mean, it's never even watched television!"
"Come to think of it, how did that coffee table do any of the things it did?" The Mad Wizard paused thoughtfully. "In fact, isn't the 'the coffee table did it' from the previous chapter itself an empty explanation fallacy?"
"Oh no," replied the tiger, "that's not true."
"But isn't this a bad argument?"

Dr. Paranoia's patients appear to have been mauled in his waiting room.
"The coffee table did it" is a good explanation for the apparently mauled patients.
No other good explanation exists.

The coffee table did do it

"I mean," the wizard went on, "isn't this really an empty explanation?"
"Yeah," added the doctor excitedly, "and it also commits the other fallacy, the whatchallit,... "
"Here it comes!" The tiger muttered, her voice and manner turning surly.
"... the fallacy of suppressed competitor. (Which is kind of the same as suppressed evidence.)"
"They always blame the tiger," said the tiger under her breath.
"After all," the doctor continued blithely, "there was..."
"Just because I have great fangs and razor-sharp claws... "
"After all," the doctor repeated firmly. "There was a potted palm in the room!"
"Oh," said the tiger.
"Actually, I think the alternative has to be plausible." The wizard replied slowly. "The potted palm isn't any more plausible than the coffee table."
"Well, if it's just exactly as plausible as the coffee table, then the argument is an ignored competitor fallacy."
"Yeah, okay, I see that." The wizard nodded.
"As for being empty," the doctor continued slowly, "'the coffee table did it' is not provably false, or vague or circular, and I guess it's testable, but it gives no causal mechanism and, of course, it is totally inconsistent with real people's actual background knowledge."
"Hey!" Complained the wizard, "just because I'm fictional doesn't mean I don't have feelings!"
"At least you two are based on real people," groused the tiger. "I'm totally fictional."
"Count yourself lucky!" The wizard grumbled back. "It's not easy being based on some writer's emotionally immature, wish-fullfilment twisted self-image... "
"ALL RIGHT!" The doctor yelled. "Can we please get back to the material!" The doctor straightened his lab-coat angrily. Two bottles of vodka fell out and rolled under the couch. "Now that we know that this argument commits two fallacies, doesn't that mean that our reasoning in the last chapter was fallacious?"
"Oh, no no no nono!" The tiger shook her head vigourosly. "I agree that 'the coffee table did it' is an empty explanation, and that the argument you just gave ignores a competing explanation, but that argument is not what your conclusion rests on in the previous chapter. It rests on something like"

Dr. Paranoia's patients appear to have been mauled in his waiting room.
Mill's method of concommitant variation indicates that the coffee table caused this.

The coffee table caused Dr. Paranoia's patients to appear to have been mauled.

"Notice that the argument doesn't say that the coffee table is any kind of explanation for the appearance of mauling, it just says that one usually reliable method of discovering causes has narrowed down the possibilities to that one. This means that 'what caused it?' is a different question from 'how did it cause it?' The first question is answered by showing a persistent correlation between the effect and some associated factor. The second question is answered by showing the mechanism by which that causal factor results in the effect."
"Hang on," said the wizard, "this means that causal reasoning isn't about how causes cause effects. But explanations are about how a cause causes an effect!"
"Quite right," replied the tiger, "that's why ... "
"But it's confusing!" the wizard interrupted petulantly.
"Well," replied the tiger, "maybe it's because people mainly use the word 'cause' when they're wondering what is causing something, and when they're thinking about how something happened they tend to use the word 'explain.'"
"Still seems weird to me," the wizard grumbled. He folded his arms crossly, and then scratched his nose with a third arm that poked up out of the breast pocket of his wizard robes.
There was an awkward silence. Dr. Paranoia opened his liquor cabinet and passed out glasses of Talisker to ease the tension. His guests gagged appreciatively.
"Say," Doctor Paranoia said suddenly. "didn't you say that having a causal mechanism was more important than being consistent with our background knowledge?"
"Yes, I did replied the tiger." She helped herself to more whiskey. "That's because our background knowledge can turn out to be wrong, but an 'explanation' that lacks a causal mechanism doesn't give us any reason to think that our background knowledge is wrong."
"Hang on!" The wizard's mouth was full of whiskey, so he spoke by materializing a small portable stereo in the air above his left shoulder. "I thought that a causal mechanism was a way of connecting the explanandum - the thing we're explaining - to our background knowledge."
"Sometimes it is," the tiger admitted carefully, "but sometimes that causal mechanism is one we didn't know about until we had to explain this particular explanandum. In such cases, the fact that an explanation contradicts our existing knowledge isn't a deciding factor."
"So how do you decide?" asked the doctor.
"Well," said the tiger, "to understand that you'd have to know about how science works. Science works... "
"No, no," forget I asked, the doctor interruped hastily.
"But don't you want know how science works?" The tiger sounded hurt.
"You can tell us about it tomorrow," the wizard said in a soothing voice tinged with tiny green bubbles. The portable stereo abruptly fell to the floor.

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