What's the difference between causation and correlation?

@Satan phil,

Satan;71988 wrote:

What label you apply to it, does not matter, as long as we both know what the other is talking about. Coherence is all that matters.

But that is false. If you were to call a whale or porpoise a fish you would be biologically wrong. And if you called a rose a stinkweed you would be wrong, since whales and porpoises are not fish, and roses are not stinkweeds. The fact that your audience can overlook your mistake has nothing to do with it. Suppose, by a slip you mentioned that today is Tuesday, when it was actually Wednesday. The person you were talking to might consider it a slip and know that you meant to say that it was Wednesday. Nevertheless, what you said was false. It was Tuesday, not Wednesday. It did not impede communication, since the other person just corrected for you. But that does not mean you did not say what was false, does it?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;72002 wrote:

If you were to call a whale or porpoise a fish you would be biologically wrong.

If I swap meanings for the words "fish" and "mammal" then I can call whales fish all day long and be right. The only problem will be that everyone else will misunderstand me. However, if we all swap meanings for those words then there would be no difference. That's the point which you haven't addressed.

@Satan phil,

The point is the physical word, spelling, pronunciation and all is not the word's meaning? I'm disagreeable.

I would like to pose a question to you, my dear archfiend. Perhaps it has already been answered - What is the difference between correlation and causality?

@Ultracrepidarian,

Ultracrepidarian;72046 wrote:

The point is the physical word, spelling, pronunciation and all is not the word's meaning? I'm disagreeable.

I would like to pose a question to you, my dear archfiend. Perhaps it has already been answered - What is the difference between correlation and causality?

Correlation is the observable evidence of causation, of which causation is the best explanation.

@Ultracrepidarian,

Ultracrepidarian;72046 wrote:

The point is the physical word, spelling, pronunciation and all is not the word's meaning? I'm disagreeable.

I would like to pose a question to you, my dear archfiend. Perhaps it has already been answered - What is the difference between correlation and causality?

The is no detectable difference. It's not testable.

---------- Post added at 11:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:14 AM ----------

kennethamy;72072 wrote:

Correlation is the observable evidence of causation, of which causation is the best explanation.

No it's not. You are making a logical fallacy. This has already been explained to you before.

Satan;68880 wrote:

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for "after this, therefore because (on account) of this", is a logical fallacy (of the questionable cause variety) which states, "Since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one."

Correlation does not imply causation. It's rudimentary common knowledge and should have been taught to you in grade school.

@Satan phil,

Satan;72124 wrote:

The is no detectable difference. It's not testable.

---------- Post added at 11:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:14 AM ----------

No it's not. You are making a logical fallacy. This has already been explained to you before.

Correlation does not imply causation. It's rudimentary common knowledge and should have been taught to you in grade school.

Why is saying that correlation is evidence for causation, a logical fallacy? I am not saying that it is conclusive evidence, nor am I saying that it is not possible to have correlation without having causation. The fallacy you probably have in mind is the, post hoc, ergo propter hoc, fallacy. But I am not committing that fallacy. I did not say that because there is correlation, there has to be causation. I said only that correlation is evidence of causation. That is not committing the fallacy. It is just true. Whether, if there is correlation, there is causation, of course, needs more investigation. It may, or it may not. But it is important to notice that unless there is correlation, it is unlikely that there is causation. So that correlation is a necessary condition of causation, but it is not a sufficient condition of causation. The fallacy is to think that correlation is a sufficient rather than a necessary condition of causation. And I am not committing that fallacy. Do you see the difference between the two? So I did not say that correlation implies causation. What I said is that causation implies correlation. Was that distinction taught to you in grade school. (Could be that the teacher never made that distinction either).

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;72219 wrote:

I said only that correlation is evidence of causation.

Say it with me...

Correlation does not imply causation.

It doesn't imply it, ergo, it's not evidence of it.

kennethamy;72219 wrote:

So I did not say that correlation implies causation.

You're contradicting yourself in the same post!

@Satan phil,

Satan;72225 wrote:

Say it with me...

Correlation does not imply causation.

It doesn't imply it, ergo, it's not evidence of it.

You're contradicting yourself in the same post!

You are right. Correlation does not imply causation. But, causation does imply correlation.
And, in fact. evidence need not imply what it is evidence for. For instance, dark clouds in the sky are evidence for rain. But you may have dark clouds in the sky, and yet not have rain. In the same way, correlation is evidence of causation. But, of course, you may have correlation, but not causation.

So, when there is correlation, as there is between heating a metal, and the metal expanding, that is evidence for causation. But, of course, whether there is causation (and not accidental correlation) has to be investigated. We have to be able to show not only that heating metal is correlated with metal expansion. We have to show why that is so. When we have done that, we have shown that there is a causal connection between the two kinds of events.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;72233 wrote:

In the same way, correlation is evidence of causation.

Any correlation can exist with or with out causation therefore correlation is not evidence of causation.

@Satan phil,

Satan;72237 wrote:

Any correlation can exist with or with out causation therefore correlation is not evidence of causation.

Lightening and thunder can exist without its raining. Therefore lightening and thunder is not evidence that it will rain.

Letters in my mail box could have got there without a mailman bringing them.
Therefore, letters in my mail box are not evidence of a mailman bringing them.

A person can wear a dress, and have very long hair, without being a girl, so wearing a dress and having long hair is not evidence of being a girl.

A person can get a straight 4.0 average and still be retarded. Therefore, having a straight 4.0 average is not evidence that the person is not retarded.

You must agree with all the above. Right?

@Satan phil,

Satan;71957 wrote:

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

There are other languages besides English and they seem to manage just fine with different words.

Funny you should mention it. The psychological underpinnings of naming have been studied, the results seem to indicate that the name of an object, depending on how that name relates to other names, often gives a very different social significance to the object, and this can often result in a change in the desirability of the object from culture to culture.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;72240 wrote:

Lightening and thunder can exist without its raining. Therefore lightening and thunder is not evidence that it will rain.

Letters in my mail box could have got there without a mailman bringing them.
Therefore, letters in my mail box are not evidence of a mailman bringing them.

A person can wear a dress, and have very long hair, without being a girl, so wearing a dress and having long hair is not evidence of being a girl.

A person can get a straight 4.0 average and still be retarded. Therefore, having a straight 4.0 average is not evidence that the person is not retarded.

You must agree with all the above. Right?

You seem to be confused about the difference between having evidence and making a prediction. Even though none of those things are evidence of anything, they are useful predictors.

So, I agree, we see dark clouds and then usually we see rain.

We see correlation and then... uh oh... we never see causation...

So, I guess your analogy doesn't really make sense.

@Satan phil,

Satan;72245 wrote:

You seem to be confused about the difference between having evidence and making a prediction. Even though none of those things are evidence of anything, they are useful predictors.

So, I agree, we see dark clouds and then usually we see rain.

We see correlation and then... uh oh... we never see causation...

So, I guess your analogy doesn't really make sense.

Thunder and lightening are "useful predictors", but not evidence of its going to rain? Then why are they "useful predictors" and what would be evidence of it is going to rain? And you don't think it is evidence of a mailman bringing the letters, that there are letters in the mailbox? Can you say, why not?

Of course we see correlation but not causation. I pointed that out myself. That is because correlation is evidence of causation. We also see evidence of electrons, but we never see electrons. Does that mean there are no electrons?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;72252 wrote:

We also see evidence of electrons, but we never see electrons. Does that mean there are no electrons?

We can observe electrons and we can use them to observe other things. That's how electron microscopes work.

@Satan phil,

Satan;72245 wrote:

You seem to be confused about the difference between having evidence and making a prediction. Even though none of those things are evidence of anything, they are useful predictors.

So, is anything evidence of anything? Is there such a thing as evidence at all? The word is used quite often in ordinary language; is the philosophical sense different?

And can you explain how the above things can be useful predictors if they are not evidence? There must be some factor making them useful predictors. If there were nothing but pure chance, the statistical likelihood of the patterns of correlation we see would be so low as to be negligible.

@ACB,

ACB;72261 wrote:

So, is anything evidence of anything? Is there such a thing as evidence at all? The word is used quite often in ordinary language; is the philosophical sense different?

There is evidence of correlation, not of causation.

ACB;72261 wrote:

If there were nothing but pure chance, the statistical likelihood of the patterns of correlation we see would be so low as to be negligible.

Some religious people say that the odds of life forming by chance would be so low as to be negligible. I hope you don't believe that fallacious argument either. You cannot establish, a priori, the odds of anything happening or not happening.

Objective randomness doesn't rule out the possibility of chance regularities.

@Satan phil,

Satan;72272 wrote:

There is evidence of correlation, not of causation.

Some religious people say that the odds of life forming by chance would be so low as to be negligible. I hope you don't believe that fallacious argument either. You cannot establish, a priori, the odds of anything happening or not happening.

Objective randomness doesn't rule out the possibility of chance regularities.

There is correlation. That is something we can observe. But correlation is evidence of causation. But, of course, not conclusive evidence. As I said, correlation is a necessary condition of causation, but not a sufficient condtion, and, therefore, correlation does not imply causation. But causation pretty much implies correlation. So, of course, correlation does not "rule out" accident or chance. But why should that mean that correlation is not evidence of causation? Mail in the mailbox does not rule out the possibility that the mailman did not cause those letters in the mailbox. But it is quite good evidence that the mailman caused those letters in the mailbox. Don't you think so? Why must chance regularities be ruled out for there to be evidence of causation? That chance that the mailman brought the letters is not ruled out, but certainly we have good evidence that the mailman caused the letters in the mailbox.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;72281 wrote:

But why should that mean that correlation is not evidence of causation? Mail in the mailbox does not rule out the possibility that the mailman did not cause those letters in the mailbox. But it is quite good evidence that the mailman caused those letters in the mailbox. Don't you think so?

No, I don't think so and I don't see why you do.

@Satan phil,

Satan;72272 wrote:

Objective randomness doesn't rule out the possibility of chance regularities.

On that view, what grounds have you for believing that such 'chance regularities' will continue in future? None that I can see. Then how can there be useful predictors?

@Satan phil,

Satan;72285 wrote:

No, I don't think so and I don't see why you do.

You really do not think that mail in the letter box is good evidence that a mailman was there to put the letters into the letter box? How would you suppose it likely that the letters got into the letter box? You think that some carrier pigeon delivers your mail?

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What's the difference between causation and correlation?

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