There's this fascinating essay on "normative sociology" - the assignment of causes to effects based on philosophical or ideological considerations (via Arnold Kling).
If you're paying attention, you'll notice this sort of thing going on all the time.
In extreme cases, the assigned cause postdates the effect... for example, a crime wave is followed by a surge in gun sales, which clearly must have caused the crime wave; or, a change in wildlife behavior is obviously caused by climate change projected to happen a decade from now*.
(Colony Collapse Disorder is definitely, positively caused by: global warming, cellphones**, neonicotinoid pesticides, changes in beekeeping practices, high-fructose corn syrup, fungus, genetically-modified crops, HAARP, the Jews, inbreeding, video games, mites... did I miss any One True Explanation?)
With society aswarm with permanent grievance groups, each with its own designated villain, we naturally see all the usual causes assigned to any given bad event, with cheerful disregard*** for the actual facts at hand****.
And then sometimes looking for "the cause of A" is going about things the wrong way which; could be that A is the baseline condition, and we should look at the cause(s) of not-A. Poverty is an obvious A - refer to Heinlein and "bad luck" - but I'm sure there are others. Tribalism? Zero-sum economics? What else?
* Yeah, this is stuff that comes to mind to a minarchist living in Democrat country. I'm sure there are Republican examples too. Probably even minarchist examples.
** The bees get to using their little phones while flying, and get lost, fly into obstacles, don't notice predators, etc.
*** Except for the cheerful part.
**** I remember that TWA Flight 800 was definitely blown up by Arab terrorists, unless it was a false-flag operation by the U.S. Navy.
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