The better we identify causes and their relationships to effects,

the more we will avoid pernicious errors and get the desired results.

                                                                           This writer

Cause and effect relationships fall under the concept of causality. It is an indispensable tool in the common affairs of life. To improve life and prevent tragedies we need to find the causes that produce effects like war, bad institutions, bad government, diseases, death, fires, and accidents. At the level of every day human experience and the applied sciences this means:

1. The relationship is that between one event, named cause, and another event that occurs as a consequence of the cause, named effect. Analogous, in the context of human behavior, the relationship is that between conduct and result.

2. Events, single or multiple, may be:  facts that include non-events, processes including thought processes, properties, variables, and states of affairs.

3. All events with information about the real world are only probably true. They may be ranked within a hierarchy of "Degrees of Truth or Falsehood," see Knowledge as Justified True Belief. If one needs a numerical value as to the likelihood of some event to or not to occur, one needs to apply probability theory.

4. If a single event can produce an effect, then it is named sufficient cause. Also, the sufficient condition of a concept are the set of necessary conditions that, if met, qualify something as an example of a particular concept. For example, a square must have four sides that are equal in length and form four ninety degree internal angels.

5. If it takes multiple events to produce an effect, then each of these events is named a necessary cause. Without each of the necessary causes the effect will not occur. That is, necessary conditions are those properties that must be present for something to be an example of the concept in question. For example, a square must have four sides. However, this is not sufficient to bring a square about.

6. The cause must occur prior to, or at least simultaneously, with the effect.

7. Cause and effect must be in contact or linked by a chain of intermediate things in contact.

It is claimed that:

If there is a sufficient cause or if there is a complete set of necessary causes to produce an effect, then the effect must happen.

If there is no sufficient cause or if the set of necessary causes to produce an effect is incomplete, then the effect cannot happen.

If and only if a certain sufficient cause or a certain complete set of necessary causes can produce an effect, then when the effect occurs, we may be sure that this sufficient cause or the set of necessary causes actually occurred even so we may not be able to identify it sufficiently. 

If the effect always occurs when one particular cause preceded it, then we know that it is either a sufficient cause or one of the necessary ones. If, however, the effect sometimes occurs without the cause, then we know that either it is not the cause or that other causes may produce the effect.

If there is a multitude of apparently relevant causes, then we remove one cause at a time and observe if the effect still occurs. If the effect does not occur when removing a particular cause, then this is the cause or is at least associated with the cause. If more than one, or perhaps all, of the apparently relevant causes result in the effect not produced, then we know that they are part of a set of necessary causes.

How do we evaluate causality and avoid errors?

1. We avoid the fallacy of assuming the cause when we look for a transparent relationship between cause and effect. The most common error here is to assume something as a cause only because it happened prior to an effect. This is known as the post hoc, ergo prompter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) fallacy.

2. We avoid the fallacy of confusing causes and correlation when we look for a related pattern of repetition. One event may correlate, that is, follow regularly another or vary up and down with it though there is no causal relation holding between them. Hence, correlation alone will not do. There must be strong evidence of a plausible connection such as an evident instrumentality or active force in the assumed cause that could produce the effect.     

3. We avoid the fallacy of oversimplification when we identify all necessary causes that often bring about several effects that also need to be identified. Personal, social, and political problems/effects have almost always multiple causes not a single one.

But where do the causes come from?

They come from a long chain of prior causes that are traceable, at least in theory, all the way back to the origin of the universe that started with an explosion of energy. This event is known as the Big Bang and happened some 15,000 million years ago. This energy also produced matter. And we know that matter and energy, though convertible into each other, cannot be created or destroyed. These attributes make them eternal because they have neither beginning nor end. It follows that,

energy and matter are the uncaused cause that self-sufficiently brought about everything we are conscious of and including the human consciousness and conscience itself.