How it works
The four moves
Every observation is a fork in the road between "these two things move together" and "one caused the other." CauseForge drills the four moves that tell them apart:
- Mechanism Find the plausible how-and-why pathway — not just a re-wording of the claim.
- Counterfactual Find the test: would the effect still have happened WITHOUT the supposed cause?
- Falsification Find the single observation that would DISPROVE the claim if you saw it.
- Confound Find the hidden third thing that could be driving both sides of the correlation.
Then: weigh the shapes (the originality step)
After you pick a move, a non-scored step asks you to weigh the other shapes a correlation can hide — a direct cause, a reversed arrow, a common cause (confound), a coincidence, a step in between (mediator), or an only-when (moderator). A local meter counts how many shapes you weighed and names the ones you skipped, with a question to rule them out. This is deliberate: a large study found that training the reasoning move — not just handing people an AI — produced more original, mechanism-based ideas. The habit of holding several explanations at once is the skill.
The drill bank
A rotating set of 12 real observations, 3+ per move, with one defensibly-best move and an elaborated reason for every option (so a wrong pick still teaches):
- Mechanism A gardener notices the seedlings on the south-facing windowsill grow noticeably taller than the ones on a shelf across the room · In a study · Bread dough left in a warm bowl slowly puffs up to twice its size before baking
- Counterfactual "I started taking vitamin C on Monday and my cold was gone by Sunday — so the vitamin cured it · A shop redesigned its logo in December and sales rose 20% that month · A team lost three games
- Falsification Hypothesis: "All swans are white · Hypothesis: "Heavier objects always fall faster than lighter ones · Hypothesis: "This wildflower can only grow in acidic soil
- Confound Across many towns · In an elementary school · A city finds that on days with higher ice-cream sales
Honest note: CauseForge trains a reasoning habit — it is practice, not a promise of measured "originality," IQ, or a grade. Real causal claims often need controlled studies this drill only gestures at; the point is to make you slower to jump from "moves together" to "caused." There is no score, no streak, and nothing to buy. Everything runs on this device; there are no accounts, and nothing you do leaves the device.