{"id":2320,"date":"2012-10-08T11:55:18","date_gmt":"2012-10-08T09:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/?p=2320"},"modified":"2024-02-24T10:39:50","modified_gmt":"2024-02-24T09:39:50","slug":"the-spread-of-correlation-does-not-imply-causation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/icci-blog\/the-spread-of-correlation-does-not-imply-causation\/","title":{"rendered":"The spread of &#8220;Correlation does not imply causation&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Daniel Engber&#8217;s short article at Slate on the success of the misleading formula &#8220;correlation does not imply causation&#8221; is doubly relevant here: as an example of the epidemiology of a scientific idea, and as a corrective to a clich\u00e9 all too common in the social sciences:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;So how did a stats-class admonition become so misused and so widespread? What made this simple caveat\u2014a warning not to fall too hard for correlation coefficients\u2014into a coup de grace for second-rate debates? A survey shows the slogan to be a computer-age phenomenon, one that spread through print culture starting in the 1960s and then redoubled its frequency with the advent of the Internet.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/Correlation-does-not-imply-causation_-How-the-Internet-fell-in-love-with-a-stats-class-cliche_.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Daniel Engber&#8217;s short article at Slate on the success of the misleading formula &#8220;correlation does not imply causation&#8221; is doubly relevant here: as an example of the epidemiology of a scientific idea, and as a corrective to a clich\u00e9 all too common in the social sciences: &#8220;So how did a stats-class admonition become so misused [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":685,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The spread of &quot;Correlation does not imply causation&quot; - International Cognition and Culture Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scary-committee.localsite.io\/blogs\/icci-blog\/the-spread-of-correlation-does-not-imply-causation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The spread of &quot;Correlation does not imply causation&quot; - International Cognition and Culture Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Daniel Engber&#8217;s short article at Slate on the success of the misleading formula &#8220;correlation does not imply causation&#8221; is doubly relevant here: as an example of the epidemiology of a scientific idea, and as a corrective to a clich\u00e9 all too common in the social sciences: &#8220;So how did a stats-class admonition become so misused [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/scary-committee.localsite.io\/blogs\/icci-blog\/the-spread-of-correlation-does-not-imply-causation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"International Cognition and Culture Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-10-08T09:55:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-02-24T09:39:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The ICCI Team\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"0 minutes\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/\",\"name\":\"International Cognition and Culture Institute\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/scary-committee.localsite.io\/blogs\/icci-blog\/the-spread-of-correlation-does-not-imply-causation\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/scary-committee.localsite.io\/blogs\/icci-blog\/the-spread-of-correlation-does-not-imply-causation\/\",\"name\":\"The spread of \\\"Correlation does not imply causation\\\" - International Cognition and Culture Institute\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-10-08T09:55:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-02-24T09:39:50+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#\/schema\/person\/3663e04874ff7df2f070d2982a1474ad\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/scary-committee.localsite.io\/blogs\/icci-blog\/the-spread-of-correlation-does-not-imply-causation\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#\/schema\/person\/3663e04874ff7df2f070d2982a1474ad\",\"name\":\"The ICCI Team\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cdc7166b2c4c44441b1c2c13cea716e8?s=96&d=http%3A%2F%2Fcognitionandculture.local%2Fwp-content%2Fthemes%2Fbelle%2Fuser.png&r=g\",\"caption\":\"The ICCI Team\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/685"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2320"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18333,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320\/revisions\/18333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}