The point about "because" is very well-taken: Every "may" and "likely to" and "could" requires a "because" statement or its equivalent—the reason we believe wha

The point about "because" is very well-taken: Every "may" and "likely to" and "could" requires a "because" statement or its equivalent—the reason we believe what we believe It is important to remember that any "may", "likely to" and "could" statement can be replaced with a "might not" statement with precisely the same meaning, unless you quantify the probabilities (difficult and often so imprecise as to be pointless). We see this all the time in tech journalism: "New technology might not lead to breakthrough in flying cars!" has exactly the same meaning as "New technology may lead to breakthrough in flying cars!" but for some reason we always see the latter and never the former. I recommend reading any article with unqualified "may" statements with them flipped to "might not". It will rapidly become clear how much of this kind of journalism is hopeful nonsense.