Guest Column Every day, we look at things happening around us and try to figure out why they occurred. We live and learn by observing cause and effect. When my toothpaste went missing the first time, I wondered what caused its disappearance. Now I’ve learned first to check in the kids’ bathroom. Detectives try to find a criminal (the cause of a crime) by evaluating what has happened (the effects of the crime). Working backwards from effect to cause is very important for science and medicine. It’s also the work of historians. Sometimes, specific sins we commit cause bad effects in our ...