The Problem Of Cause And Effect In Scientific Research
Understanding The Potential Consequences Of Failing To Understand Research Correctly
Hey Seekers!
Welcome to Today’s Edition of the Seeking Sageship Newsletter!
Your Daily Guidance to Go Beyond Leadership!
All Subscribers have Access to the Free Section…
1%+ Compounded Improvement in 1% of Your Time Maximum!
Plus, a Preview of the “Psychophysiological Mastery” Paid Section Is Available!
Let’s Dive In…
The Problem Of Cause And Effect In Scientific Research
Understanding The Potential Consequences Of Failing To Understand Research Correctly
For Every Action There Is An Equal And Opposite Reaction.
Newton's Third Law of Motion.
It is something that many of us learn in School and Describes the Idea of Cause and Effect.
When You Do Something...
Something Else Will Happen.
When Something Happens...
It was Caused by Something Else.
This is How We Look at Science.
How Research is Frequently Conducted when You Read It.
It has a Tendency to Work One of these Two Ways.
We Wanted to See What This Would Do...
So We Tested It and Got This Result.
Or...
We Saw this Result Occurring...
So We Began to Look for What Caused It and this is the Result We Found.
It seems like a Pretty Straightforward Way to Determine How to Improve Our Understanding of Science...
Except it Really Is Not.
Why?
The Process of Cause and Effect is Extremely Simple...
But Life is Not.
See, in Scientific Research what You Frequently See People Look for Cause and Effect...
Except that is "All" they Look For.
But the Problem is the In Reality, Beyond the Perfect Conditions Created for Research...
There are Multiple Orders of Consequences...
What Does this Mean?
Well, there is a Cause...
Which has an Effect which becomes Your First Order Consequence...
Which then has a Secondary Effect which becomes Your Second Order Consequence...
Which becomes a Third Effect and Third Order Consequence...
And It Continues to Go Forward from there.
There are an Incredible Number of Orders of Consequences that happen within an Incredibly Short Period of Time.
But Usually Research Does Not take this into Consideration.
Most Research Looks Only at First Order Consequences...
Then Tries to Determine "Solutions" Based Solely on the Consequence they are Looking At.
As an Example, I was Looking at Research Recently around DNA Editing in Cells.
The Researchers Looked at a Specific Sequence of DNA that they had Determined Could Possibly be Problematic and Lead to a Certain Disease...
Changed and Edited the DNA Sequence...
Then Went to Put the Edited Cell back into the Body.
What Did They Find?
The Body Tried to Reject the Cell.
Essentially, the Body reacted with Inflammation which Targeted the Edited Cell, and Prevented it from Replicating and Caused the Edited DNA to become Eliminated.
Now, what Conclusion did the Researchers Draw from this?
That Perhaps they should Simultaneously Inject Something that would Prevent the Inflammation so that the Edited Cell could Proliferate Better.
But What Did the Research Fail to Look At?
Multiple Orders of Consequences.
The First Failure comes from the Belief that Specific Genes Cause Specific Outcomes.
They Do Not.
The Research Over the Years has Become "Extremely" Clear that Genes Alone Are Rarely the "Cause" of Disease.
That is Why Researchers "Have" to Use Percentages Now Instead of Cause and Effect.
The More You Look into Genetics, and More Importantly Epigenetics, you Discover that DNA often Changes and "Turns On" and "Turns Off" Based on Environmental Factors.
What does this Mean?
The DNA is Not the "Cause" of the Disease...
It is an "Effect" of an Environmental Cause, and which Does Not "Cause" the Disease, but "May" be a Determining Factor in Knowing that You "Might" have the Disease.
Which is Why in All Genetics Testing Today, they Use Percentages, aka a "Likelihood" You "Might" Have/Get the Disease.
The Environmental Cause Leads to the DNA Turning On or Off, which then Seems to Allow the Disease to Spread...
Assuming there are Not Any Other Second, Third, or More Orders of Consequences which have to Occur First...
Which is the Most Likely Situation.
So Even "If" You Did Successfully Change the DNA, if You Fail to Change the Upstream Environmental Cause, it would Likely have No Impact on the Final Result...
Or Worse.
Which Brings Us to the Conclusion that the Researchers Came To...
The Reaction of the Body was to Create Inflammation.
Now, "What" is the Purpose of Inflammation?
It is a Reaction that is Triggered when the Body Needs to Heal from some sort of Damage.
It is a Signal to Heal Damage.
So, Now there are Two Issues we must look at...
The First is that When the Edited DNA was Inserted Back, it "Caused" Inflammation...
Because the Researcher was Only Focused on a First Order Consequence, they Failed to Consider that...
Perhaps the Reason that the Body Reacted with Inflammation is that the Edited DNA was "Causing" Damage...
Which is Why the Body Reacted with Stopping the Damage from Spreading.
To Understand What Damage We would Likely Need More Research, but it Seems that was the Body's Goal in Making Sure that the Edited Cell Couldn't Replicate.
Now...
What Do You Suppose will Happen if you "Stop" the Inflammation?
The Body Never Gets the "Communication" that there is a Problem that Needs to be Healed.
So, as Long as You Purposefully Stop the Inflammation...
Damage can Happen...
And Spread...
Unopposed in the Body.
Whether it is from the Edited Cell or Any Other Possible Problem that Could Occur in the Human Body.
Now, the Consequences of that Could Possibly Be Nothing...
Or Catastrophic.
But it becomes Really Difficult to Know What or How Bad when you Turn Off the Body's System to Signal to Heal.
Now, this is just "One" Example of the Problems of Cause and Effect in Scientific Research.
One of the Greatest Challenges in Today's World is that "Most" Research Follows Similar Trends.
Researchers Frequently Only Consider a Singular Cause and Effect without Looking at the Larger Contexts of What Could Occur.
Part of the Problem is that this is "How" Most Researchers are Trained to Think...
Another Part of the Problem is that Most Researchers are Hyper-Focused on Individuals Systems or Specialties.
What Does This Mean?
They Fail to See "How" the Second, Third, or More Orders of Consequences "Could" Happen because they Do Not Study Other Areas of Research.
They become Blinded by their Focus.
This is a Consequence of How Researchers are Taught to Build their Careers.
Extreme Specializations Tend to Come with Extreme Incomes.
But this Creates a Larger Problem for Us as a Society.
If We are All Working on Scientific Research in the Individual Silos...
Without Ever Coming Together to Understand How the Pieces Play Together...
And We All Try to "Solve" Problems Based Solely on Our Specializations...
Without Considering the Further Second, Third, or More Order Consequences that it Could Cause in Other Realms of Specializations...
How Much Harm Can We Cause?
I am Not Blaming the Researchers Individually for this Problem, because It is Hard to Know what You are Unaware Of...
Especially when You are Taught to "Not" Think of It...
But if We Hope to Have Success in Helping People...
We Must Come Together to Understand the Full Workings of Different Areas of Research.
See How the Pieces Fit Together...
Or Fail to Fit Together.
But it Only Happens when We Learn that Cause and Effect have Multiple Orders of Consequences We Must Seek to Understand.
Those Who Seek Sageship Also Cultivate Others!
Share this Article Today With Someone Who Needs It and Earn Exclusive Rewards!
Are You Ready To Become A Sage?
Paid Subscribers will Gain ‘Exclusive’ Access to…
Read the Entire “Psychophysiology Mastery” Deep Dive Section for Exponential Results
Access to the “Full” Paid Archive (Check Out the Cultivation Center for More)
Connect Further in the “Subscriber Only” Chat & Comments Section
“Directly” Impact Regenerative Projects around the Globe
With “More” Coming In The Future…
It’s Time to Change The World!
Psychophysiological Mastery
For Paid Subscribers
So if we want to Avoid these Mistakes…
We have to Change How We Think.
The Fastest Way to Change How We Think?
By Asking Different Questions.
The Quality of Your Questions will Determine the Quality of Your Results.
The Reason that We Tend to Struggle to Get the Answers We Seek…
Is Because We’re Asking the Wrong Questions to Get There.
So, what are Some Better Questions?
Let’s Dive In…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Seeking Sageship: Beyond Leadership to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.