Causal Stories

Story 25

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 both the safety switch is off and knob A is switched on. At 4:00 PM, the safety switch is off, and knob A is off. At that time, Tom checks to see if knob A is on, and he sees that it's off. So, he changes the position of knob A to the on position. Because the building would implode if both the safety switch is off and knob A is switched on, the building implodes at 5:00 PM.

Question

Did the building implode because Tom changed the position of knob A?

Majority Answer: Yes

Answer distribution over 25 people:

P(Yes): 0.88 P(No): 0.12

Is Ambiguous: False

Factor

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

Action Omission: Action

Causal Structure: Conjunctive