Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
The degree of
- son preference
- willingness to abort
DSP
+ + or +?
SDT
+ + or +?
disrupt point
SRB
HBV prevalence
−
VNB
Fig. 12.4 The relatively most complete causal structure with the cultural and biological causal
paths
depicted in Fig.
12.3
is revised into the new structure represented in Fig.
12.4
.
Depending on whether the population has a high or a low degree of son prefer-
ence, SDT will have very strong positive (++) or mild positive (+) effect on
increasing SRB. In other words, if a high percentage of the population prefers
having sons, the VNB's effect of decreasing SRB would be much lower than it
would otherwise be. In contrast, if most people in the population are indifferent to
their offspring's gender, then the indicators estimated from Taiwan's vaccination
campaign representing the correlation between HBV prevalence and SRB likely
would more reliably reflect the VNB's undisturbed magnitude of the effect on
decreasing SRB.
Note that the upper part of Fig.
12.4
represents the cultural and social causal
paths that are formed by the connections of the cultural causes and would have a
certain degree of influence on SRB, and the lower part of the figure consists of the
biological causal paths that are shaped by the combinations of the biological causes
and would also have a certain degree of effect on SRB. Also note that, in the process
of building the relatively most complicated causal structure represented in
Fig.
12.4
, at each step an additional causal path is appended to the original relatively
simple causal structure to form a relatively more complex figure; one important
characteristic of the theory-building methodology is that, in the end, both the
cultural and the biological groups of causal paths seem to be accommodated
by the relatively most complicated causal structure to form the relatively most
complete causal story. It is obvious that, in our description of the methodology, no
win-lose strategy is applied in choosing between two competing causal stories.
What it shows is that these two competing causal stories complement each other to
form a more complete causal story.
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