Regarding “
My professor asked: “Does an acorn cause an oak?”
After much discussion it was concluded that an acorn was necessary to yield an oak but it alone was not sufficient.
It takes many other co-producers to make an oak – adequate water, soil, something to keep squirrels from harvesting it, and many other things.
I thought of this as I read in the Herald that a spark from the train caused the 416 fire. Certainly the spark was necessary but was it totally sufficient?
Drought conditions, very rugged inaccessible terrain, prevailing winds, any many other co-producers – factors that fire fighters and forest rangers could easily identify – played an essential role.
In the final analysis, shouldn’t these factors be assigned some of the causal responsibility?
Richard O. Mason
Durango
