Cause and Effect Reading Exercise

I found this reading exercise to be fairly informative. I like how the one example that the author chose to explain this concept lasted throughout the explanation. In other words, in the many directions that the author went to analyze, explain, and critically scrutinize the given example relates to every part of this one example to the core, and that the author didn't have to go and use another example as he's digging further into his analysis. As the author goes deeper and branches out from the topic, I think the one think that strikes me as interesting is how he showed that all the arguments from the lawyers result in a pattern: that indeed they're all blaming each other, pointing fingers at the causation that happened before the person they're defending. In fact, the author points out that although they're blaming different things/people/factors, it all comes down to one thing: that it was the TRUCK that caused this whole thing, not the many things that came after it, such as the bicyclist swerving, or that driver number one braking hard. In addition to that, I found it useful that the author connected this very example to the "post hoc" term, which is something I learned not too long ago, in my English 1A class last semester. Pos hoc, which in long terms is also known as Post hoc ergo propter hoc, means that "after this, therefore because of this." What this really means is that just because B comes after A, B caused A. This relates to the example because it reinforces what the author is trying to explain to us all: that the lawyers believed that this scenario is one that can be described by using this term, that since the accident that happened before their defendant is what caused everything. However, that is not the case. As the author is trying to prove, all of this happened simply because of the truck, not any of the factors that happened after it.