Causality

Causality is a big thing in statistics.  Just because x is related to y does not mean y caused x to happen.  My day started with a demonstration of causality.

Eggs.  Tired this morning; should have gone to bed before Jon got home but didn't.  Came down to a quiet house, fed the cats and went to the fridge to get some bread for toast. Lara's daBird toys are on top of the fridge - out of reach, but tantalisingly waving around as I open and shut the door.  Lara jumps up onto the counter, peering up at the precious prize.  Coffee, I need my decaff.  There's enough water for my cup in the Senseo.  I collect my mug and put the sweeteners in, press the button.  Get the butter out for the eggs.  Look at the coffee.  No foam. Odd.  Ah, I've forgotten to put a new coffee pad in the machine!  Idiot.  Take the cup over to pour down the drain.  Something is in the back of my mind.  An unpleasant scuffling sound and a plop.  Eggs.  My two yellow boxes of new Extra Large eggs are both on the floor, inverted, with yellow globes glistening and melding within the globulous transparency of raw egg white.  I have just lost potentially a dozen eggs.  The cause?  Well there is Lara, innocently standing where the boxes stood the moment before, next to the fridge.   What has happened?  Lara has tried to climb on the boxes to get to her toy; it made her higher.  Lara has knocked all my eggs onto the floor.  Of course I should have taken the cue and moved either the eggs or the toy.  So the true cause of the accident, knowing Lara's character and potential for impulsive attempts to get what she wants, was my failing to prevent it...

Have you ever tried to scoop broken eggs off a tiled floor? My first aim, after shouting at the cats, who immediately ran to help by investigating this new feature on their floor, was to rescue any intact or nearly intact eggs.  Four were suitable for storing carefully in a bowl, fractured but not smashed.  Of the remaining 8 I managed to salvage a few which could be used for scrambled egg for breakfast but every moment not spent tackling the rest resulted in the further spread of gloop which resisted my every attempt to scoop it off the floor by just glooping in another direction. Eventually I had to subdue it with a vast amount of kitchen roll before washing the area repeatedly until my shoes stopped sticking.

I was 15 minutes late leaving for work and 15 minutes late arriving.  Eggs. The rather large scrambled egg was rather nice, however.

Today I got a surprise when my ex-colleague arrived at the office to complete the clear-out of her things.  She was to have spent the term working with me on the module but having disagreed with our line manager over teaching duties accelerated her retirement and her last day is next week.  Immediately I felt myself tensing.  On the one hand it was nice to see her; on the other I found my peace shattered and today I was feeling really tired.  I realise that this term, working with new colleagues who do not need me to 'mind them' and who take some small responsibilities for aspects of administration has made this term less tiring than I expected. My colleague tells me that some of her health problems have worsened over the last few months.  "You know, don't you" she says, "it's this place!"  She goes on to declare that everyone hates it here, and that she's glad to be getting out.  "I dont hate it" I state plainly.  "I'm doing a job that I enjoy with colleagues I like and respect." I know she is convinced that workplace issues have caused her health problems, to the extend that she blames our line manager for all her problems.  This one person has caused her health to deteriorate and her stress levels to soar.  In truth I think her stress is caused not by another person but by the mismatch between her expectations and reality; the wearing down of her internal resources to cope with the demands of her job after a series of major life stressors over the last few years.  In case I'm determined not to let her attitude get me down.  She informs me she's binned all her lectures. Got rid of everything.  Anyone who takes over the course next year will have to work their own programme, despite it having been validated in it's current form.  We'll need to get together and sort out Summer School in the next few weeks, she informs me, as she will be away until just before.  She asks me to send her the materials.  She hasn't got them (despite my giving them to her every year) - she has deleted all her work.  She wants us to rewrite part of the course. I say I haven't got time to rewrite it; if she wants to change some of the material she presents, that's fine.  She wants to get rid of some of the 'serious' stuff.  She thinks we should make it more 'fun'. I point out it's a credit bearing module, so we have to keep an academic focus.  She then starts telling me that she doesn't like the material about the MBTI on some of the slides.  This was material I asked for her input on previously. I'm feeling aggravated already.  I'm trying to work.  I have a teaching observation to do in 30 minutes.  I don't want to argue about this joint collaboration but already I'm beginning to regret I agreed to do it again this year.  Maybe it's just not worth it because I really don't want all this aggravation. But I keep quiet, as I always do.  So does she cause me to be stressed?  Well just as I tell her that it's not our boss that has caused her health problems, so I can't claim that she causes me to be stressed.  The stress arises from inside myself but I guess my consistently stifling my annoyance and irritation - irritation against myself too for allowing myself to take these things personally as much as anything - that could be causally related to a rise in my stress levels...

Nice programme tonight on the universe.  Gravity.  Apparently when Einstein looked at the work of Newton in identifying gravity he was not satisfied.  He needed to explain what caused gravity in order to accept the phenomenon was truly explained.  He was able to do this in his theory of relativity. A modern scientist looking at microscopic rock fragments from Mars proposes that it is not possible to assert that the shapes are remnants of living creatures without being 100% certain they were not caused by something else. Of course he's right.  To assume causality we either have to prove beyond doubt that it is a remnant of a life form (and we can't) or that there are no other possible explanations of the effect.  Are there other plausible explanations?  Yes, it could have been an affect of the thin gold coating used to allow the sample to be accessible to the electron microscope - he proves this by duplicating the effect on a terrestrial rock. There's too much doubt for us to assume causality.

Tonight I'm tired.  I think the reason is partly due to a lack of sleep, but the cause (even of that) is a lot more complicated...