is correlation (not causation) ever significant enough to justify your attention? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 days ago by qImPMgxRpOZiUbxz4hWq@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

correlation does not equal causation.

indeed it does not.

but correlation can lead to discovering causation or even larger phenomena. which is why i pay attention to "it" when appropriate. do you?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Yes, when there's a causation link between things there's also a correlation between them. But correlation does not imply causation means the link doesn't go the other way. It's like, every dog is an animal, but not every animal is a dog.

Correlations might be useful to figure out common causes, for example the correlation between student height and reading skills, could mean taller people are more educated, or, more likely, that your students are young enough that age is an important factor at play.

And finally, correlation might be just a fluke of chance, for example the amount of automotive recalls related to AirBags correlates almost perfectly with the popularity of the first name Killian: https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious/correlation/2599_popularity-of-the-first-name-killian_correlates-with_automotive-recalls-for-issues-with-the-air-bags that site has other similar examples.

So yeah, correlation might be important, but they might be nothing at all, so don't just assume that a correlation implies causation.

this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2026

18 points (87.5% liked)

Ask Lemmy

41725 readers

1816 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

6) No US Politics.

Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world

7) No Hit-and-Run questions.

Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.

8) No Bots.

Posts or comments from bots, LLM's, AIs, Neural Networks, Transformers, or Marvin the Paranoid Android are not welcome in AskLemmy. Real humans only please.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.