Within evolutionary biology, the highest level of causal explanation involves adaptation by means of natural selection.

This theory focuses on identifying how an observer uses information in his/her social environment in order to create a causal explanation for events.

Statistical analysis will not, then, be able meaningfully to confirm any causal explanation for the number of customers at any moment in time.

Geographers reacted to this by first developing the softer notion of environmental possibilism, and later by abandoning the search for theory and causal explanation for many decades.

Participants were instructed to write down three good things that happened at the end of each day, in addition to a causal explanation for each good thing.