Tag Archive | "causation"

Towards healthier skepticism: Correlation does not imply causation

This post will attempt to repeat, clarify, and elucidate the need for the remembrance and understanding of the phrase “correlation does not imply causation”. Scientific studies will be given, and the words in the phrase, which vary in meaning depending on usage, will be defined accordingly.

Scientific studies

Please take a moment to go through the following actual, summarized scientific research results:

1) In a previous scientific research using quantitative assessment, numerous epidemiological studies showed that women who were taking combined hormone replacement therapy (HRT) also had a lower-than-average incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD), leading doctors to propose that HRT was protective against CHD.

2) From a study at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, young children who sleep with the light on are much more likely to develop myopia in later life.

We will get back to them in a moment. Now we focus on correlation or co-relation, and why scientists, statisticians and skeptics, at the very least, should always try to maintain and promote the phrase “Correlation does not imply causation”.

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