Question

. You are investigating a case on suspected food poisoning at an eatery. Your investigations reveal that Mrs. Batsa complained of pain after eating a meal comprising of rice, vegetables, fruits, and cream at that eatery, but her partner Mr. Batsa, made no such complaint even though, apart from cream, they both ate the same meal from different plates. Mrs. Kumisa also complains of pain after eating yam chips, gravy and cream at the same eatery, the same day and time. Mr. Kumisa, her husband, has no such complaint, even though he also took the same meal combination as his wife apart from the cream.

Write a convincing diagnosis of the most probable cause of nausea in both of your patients by adopting the most appropriate of J.S. Mill's methods of causal reasoning. Your diagnosis should consider the possibility of causal fallacies. [10 m]

Answer 1

Answer:In this case, the most appropriate method of causal reasoning to adopt is the Method of Agreement, as it involves examining cases where the effect is present and identifying the factors that are common to all those cases.

Using the Method of Agreement, we can identify that both Mrs. Batsa and Mrs. Kumisa complained of pain after consuming meals that contained cream, while their partners who ate the same meals but did not consume cream did not complain of any pain. This suggests that cream may be the most probable cause of the nausea experienced by both patients.

However, it is important to consider the possibility of causal fallacies, such as the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this), where a cause-and-effect relationship is assumed based on temporal sequence alone. In this case, it is possible that the nausea experienced by both patients was caused by something other than the cream, such as food poisoning from contaminated rice or yam chips.

To rule out the possibility of other causes, further investigation is needed, such as testing samples of the food consumed by both patients for contaminants. However, based on the information available, the most probable cause of the nausea experienced by both patients is the cream.

Step-by-step explanation: