Proximate explanations for health conditions consider the immediate factors: What's going on inside someone's body right now that caused a particular problem.
So get educated -- (Applause) Get educated, proximate, stay vigilant, do not be drawn into the narratives of fear, which are wildly and grossly racialized anyway.
The panic of 1907 was a proximate reason for the creation of the Federal Reserve and the beginnings of the progressive taxation of income in America, as well as an expansion of antitrust law.
When we put all these pieces together, this ultimate explanation for nearsightedness -- that environmental and behavioral change impact the way we use our eyes -- helps us better understand the proximate cause.
Of their cause we are quite ignorant; we cannot even attribute them, as in the last class of cases, to any proximate agency, such as relative position. I will give only a few instances.