"If it rained last night, the ground is wet. This morning the ground is wet. So it must have"…
"If it rained last night, the ground is wet. This morning the ground is wet. So it must have rained." Aarav thinks this reasoning is solid. His sister says the ground could be wet for other reasons. Who is right?
Who do you think is right? Pick one.
The answer: His sister is right, the ground could be wet for other reasons
Why
Aarav's first sentence is fine — rain really does leave the ground wet. His mistake is running the arrow backwards. 'Rain leads to wet ground' does not mean 'wet ground leads to rain', because wet ground has other possible causes: a burst pipe, someone watering plants, heavy dew, a courtyard that was washed down. Seeing the effect tells you that one of its causes happened, not which one. Test: think of a morning when the ground was wet but you knew for certain it had not rained, because the sprinkler had been on. That single case shows wet ground does not guarantee rain. His sister is right: when an effect can come from several causes, finding the effect does not prove any one of them — you have to rule the others out.
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