Causal Stories

Story 24

Tom works for a demolition company, and today he is demolishing a building by implosion. The building will implode automatically at 5:00 PM if either the safety switch is off or knob A is switched on. At 4:00 PM, the safety switch is off, and knob A is on. At that time, Tom checks to see if knob A is on, and he sees that it's on. So, he does not change the position of knob A at all. Because the building will implode if either the safety switch is off or knob A is switched on, the building implodes at 5:00 PM.

Question

Did the building implode because Tom did not change the position of knob A?

Majority Answer: No

Answer distribution over 25 people:

P(Yes): 0.24 P(No): 0.76

Is Ambiguous: False

Factor

These are the factors and their attributes present in this story.

Action Omission: Omission

Causal Structure: Disjunctive