Correlation and Causation
My goal with this is to explain the concepts of correlation and causation and encourage you to remember this phrase “correlation does not imply causation.”
Correlation is a statistical term that implies a relationship. For example the statement, “all people have or had a mother” is an obvious relationship. Another correlation is that “cars are related to drunken driver deaths.” Correlation, in statistical terms, is measured between -1 and 1. A correlation of 1 means that they are perfectly correlated such as my mothers to children correlation. A correlation of 0 means that they are not correlated at all such as ice cream cones and Mondays (a correlation of -1 means they are oppositely related such as testicular cancer and females). Correlation can be fractional too. A correlation of 1/2 implies some relationship but not a perfect relationship. For example, people who died with Covid were, during the epidemic, said to have died from Covid. The reality is that in a lot of those deaths, the people had other major conditions that could have resulted in their death anyway such as a heart attack. In fact, I read stories about people who died in car accidents that the medical examiner found that they had Covid and attributed the death to Covid.
Causation is saying that one thing causes another thing and that is much harder to prove. It’s harder because their may be other outcomes or other influences going on. For example, “sex causes pregnancy.” It is obvious that pregnancy was caused by sex but sex doesn’t necessarily result in pregnancy.
Why is this important? People like to look at things and simplify them, a lot of times incorrectly. For example, I was reading an article where an actress that played a part on the Big Bang TV show announced she was diagnosed with lung cancer and had never smoked a cigarette. The reality is that not everyone who got lung cancer smoked and not everyone who smoked gets lung cancer. I would guess she meant to say that she was diagnosed with lung cancer even though she didn’t participate in a smoking habit that would have increased her risk of developing lung cancer.
This is where the danger between correlation and causation arise. Some people intentionally or unintentionally use correlation to imply causation hoping to get people riled up to do something. For example, I read another article where a mother left her kids in her car while she ran a short errand. While she was in the store, her 3rd grade son decided he needed to relieve himself on the street. A cop saw this and got the mother to tell her. Eventually the child was arrested for public urination. The mother is now suing the police department for racism because her son was arrested and is black. Her story is trying to correlate the fact that her son is black and arrested without proving that his race was the reason for his arrest. To be fair, I have no idea whether race was involved or not but a jury (or the public in this age of mass media) shouldn’t jump to that conclusion without proof.
This seems to be common among politicians and, from my brief experience of 2, sociologists. I remember a few years ago when the politicians in some eastern city (I think Philadelphia) were trying to imply causation between the big gulp soft drinks and obesity and therefore they should be outlawed. To the best of my knowledge, outlawing big gulps has had no measurable impact on the rate of obesity in that city.
I could go on and on with political examples (I’m trying to stop…really), but the point is that when someone is trying to convince you of their point of view, it is common to frame the persuasion highlighting the aspects they are interested in and obscuring the details that go against their point of view.
“This persuasion is not from him who calls you.” - Galatians 5:8 ESV
“With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him.” - Proverbs 7:21 ESV
“Now, therefore, do not let Hezekiah deceive you or mislead you in this fashion, and do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or from the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand!” - 2 Chronicles 32:15 ESV
“Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.” - 1 Corinthians 14:20 ESV
So, whenever someone tries to persuade you of something to get you to act on it, my advice to you is to evaluate what they say closely and biblically and remember:
Correlation does not imply Causation
