Correlation vs. Causation

Dr. Blauw mentioned correlation vs. causation in her speech, which is one of the most common ways that statistics can be misused and misrepresented to us. Maybe you've heard the phrase, "Correlation does not imply causation." Let's talk briefly about what that means.

Correlation means that two things are related to each other in some way. 

Causation means the one thing causes another thing to happen. 

Consider a simple example:

An ice cream truck drives around a neighborhood on a sunny day. The ice cream truck and the sunny day are related to each other because both things bring a lot of kids outside, so they are correlated. However, the sunny day did not CAUSE the ice cream truck to come out. Neither did the ice cream truck CAUSE the sun to come out.

The driver of the ice cream truck put the keys in the ignition and pressed on the gas. Therefore the driver driving the truck caused it to drive around the neighborhood. This would be causation.

Many times statistics are presented to us to imply causation when in fact it's only correlation. 

We'll talk about this more in upcoming lessons.