science doesn't like causation | McLuhan

I'm reading through Media and Formal Cause, a re-release of several 60s and 70s journal articles by Marshall McLuhan on his use of Aristolian formal cause to explain media effects. I love this. :)

People do not want to know the cause of anything. They do not want to know why radio caused Hitler and Ghandi alike. They do not want to know that print caused anything whatever. as users of these media, they wish merely to get inside, hope perhaps to add another layer to their environment in the manner of "The Chambered Nautilus" of Oliver Wendell Holmes. ... It does not take long to discover that all of the sciences, physical and social, are interested only in describing and measuring effects while ignoring causation entirely. A connection is not a cause but a hangup... the absence of interest in causation cannot persist in the new age of ecology. Ecology does not seek connections, but patterns.

I had to (maybe rather poorly) explain this methodological approach in my research on McLuhan because I imitated it in pursuing theological understanding of things like Facebook and remix. Excited that this book re-opens the discussion for me to maybe to adopt better descriptive language on the method.