“correlation does not imply causation”

Question

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?

In: 160

Answer 1

Correlation never implies causation because that’s an *assumption*, and scientifically, we don’t want to be making assumptions. We want to dig into the stats and see if the causation is real.

Realistically, sometimes we can make an assumption. If your co-worker Mike only wears shorts on sunny days, assuming Mike is wearing shorts because it’s sunny is a pretty fair assumption to make. But you could also assume that Mike put on shorts this morning, forcing the weather to be sunny.