Sunday, 6 June 2010

In Guns, Germs, and Steel, what is meant by ultimate and proximate causes?

In
,defines the difference between proximate and ultimate causes as
follows:

In other words, the usual view that stresses only
good institutions confuses what are called proximate causes, or dependent variables, with
ultimate causes, or independent variables ().

He goes on
to illustrate this difference with an. If a man has been cheating on his wife for some time, the
proximate cause for the breakup of the two might be the wife slapping her husband in the face.
However, the ultimate cause of the breakup was the husbands infidelity. In science, a dependent
variable is something whose change is predicated on changes in the independent variable. Another
simple illustration of this concept would be sunlight to plant growth. Changes in exposure to
sunlight, the independent variable, necessarily impact the amount that plants can grow, with
growth itself being dependent on the amount of light. Similarly, whether or not the husband
receives a...

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