this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Maybe I’m a dork, but I think“correlation does not equal causation” is actually a good thing to keep in mind.
I’m reminded of it every time a news story says something is “linked” to something else. I hate it when the word “linked” is used in this way. It’s often lazy journalism and/or a scare tactic. Saying that two things are “linked” implies a stronger relationship than may actually exist. I find it deliberately misleading.
Almost everything on the picture is a good thing to keep in mind. But the creator of the meme depicted it as a thought of a soyjack so there is nothing can be done, we now should abandon that logic entirely.
It's at its worst when a paper describes how they account for correlation or designed their experiment to confirm causation, but someone doesn't read the paper and says the line anyway.
You don't need to read the paper but don't try to act smart if you can't be bothered.
That and "this is worthless, they only tested 10 000 people" are the worst
I mostly agree with you, but it's often used as a phrase to shut down further discussion even when there could be an invisible third event that's the cause for the two seemingly unrelated events. It's gets over used by people who want to be quick to sound smart.
That phrase is used exactly to say that there is a third unseen force influencing both events. It'd be pretty strange to use that phrase to say the opposite.
Typically further discussion of the 3rd event isn't relevant, because they're not trying to find the cause, they're trying to disprove a hypothesis.
I've seen it used to end discussions. People repeat the wisdom of the phrase without understanding what you just said.
There could just be no connection at all. Like how there's a positive correlation between shark attacks and box office sales for Nick Cage movies. There might be some relation between them, but more likely there is no link and it's just random noise that happens to line up particularly well.
The reason why you might see it used as an end statement is because there is no data or clear logical link between the subjects which were correlated. It's basically saying "unless you have some reason to believe they're linked, you should probably assume they're not"
I personally prefer the pastafarianism-ism about global warming and Caribbean pirate prevalence.