tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post6219274954283228109..comments2024-02-29T03:57:00.088-05:00Comments on The Mermaid's Tale: The problem of correlation and causation is solved.....or notAnne Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-27816162593324907102010-12-31T08:14:33.352-05:002010-12-31T08:14:33.352-05:00Thanks very much for the reference and these point...Thanks very much for the reference and these pointers. I had not known of this paper, though I had known of Fisher and the smoking gun.<br /><br />The statistical issue here is relevant to many things, but perhaps not to evolutionary hypotheses, because the underlying concepts including probability and replicability don't have the same meaning as (is typically assumed) in epidemiology--and certainly in the cell-phone example.<br /><br />I wonder how often the Cornfield points actually apply even to epidemiology, given the heterogeneity and changeability of the complex networks of causation, behavior exposure, and so on. I'd have to play around with the material in the paper (your link) to get a sense in my own mind of how applicable or useful the ideas would be.<br /><br />But they certainly seem to be highly relevant, and generally not sufficiently part of routine thinking (my own included!). So, again, thanks.Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-91885092994795862422010-12-31T03:15:06.456-05:002010-12-31T03:15:06.456-05:00Well, in some cases, we can rely on math: not all ...Well, in some cases, we can rely on math: not all cases of correlation are subject to the "correlation is not causation" excuse all. In particular, there are calculable circumstances under which the claim is just false. That is, as Cornfield showed in response to Fisher's chain-smoking claims that the (very high) correlation between smoking and lung-cancer was "just a correlation", you can compute how large the correlation of the alleged confounder (or its multivariate set) must be to produce the observed correlation, and, reject that alternative on those grounds alone: http://www.statlit.org/pdf/1999SchieldASA.pdfJohn R. Vokeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03822243132435056442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-49771589676792373852010-12-30T08:37:22.785-05:002010-12-30T08:37:22.785-05:00It's somewhat worse, actually. It's confu...It's somewhat worse, actually. It's confusing axioms with inferences. <br /><br />The axiom--assumed to be true but not proven or provable--is that everything here needs an adaptive Darwinian explanation. <br /><br />The inference is that our confusion of correlation with causation is a by-product of our adaptation to noticing co-occurrence: those who didn't, died out.<br /><br />The strength of reasoning--or its lack of it--is about the same in both instances. But we are so desirous of having answers, and we so like nice 'closed' (no-doubt) stories, that we have a hard time resisting them.<br /><br />Hmmm, maybe that's because we evolved to need answers so we could find our prey and avoid our enemies.....Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-91964973713889805012010-12-30T07:49:51.206-05:002010-12-30T07:49:51.206-05:00Perhaps that was the mathematician's second at...Perhaps that was the mathematician's second attempt to get the media to bite.:)James Goetzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02412501436355228925noreply@blogger.com