I’ve seen this referenced a lot, especially with psychology, but can someone explain what exactly it means? How does correlation not imply causation? Sometimes, does correlation ever imply causation?
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It’s also known as ‘post hoc, ergo propter hoc’: ‘from this, therefore because of this’.
*Post hoc* arguments are fallacy, because such is almost never the case: that two events occur simultaneously does not necessarily mean that one of those events causes the other.
For example, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster facetiously claims (as a mockery of organized religion) that global warming is caused by the decline of piracy following the end of the age of sail. They make the connection by charting the decline of piracy and corelating it to an increase in the average global temperature as piracy declines.
In reality, the timing of the two events is entirely coincidental; the decline in piracy has nothing to do with any change in the Earth’s average temperature.
That a correlation between the two events *exists* does not imply causation.
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