Every time I come across an article about cancer, I'm reminded of that website that catalogued all the things that The Daily Mail said either caused or prevented cancer.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200221175201/http://kill-or-cu...

Too bad it's down, but here's an archive of it.

▲ BobbyTables2 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Watch out for dihydrogen monoxide… It has been found in 100% of all cancer cases but the government pumps it into our houses anyway…

▲ Macha 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Put to song by comedian Russell Howard:

https://youtu.be/q3chJN9DCGg

▲ kreelman 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is this whole article (the article in this Hacker News post, to be clear) an example of

   "Correlation is not causation"  ?

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tjwebbnorfolk 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The strength of the correlation might be the only useful single variable we can have in discussions like this.

I'm starting to think that "Correlation is not causation" is a kind of slippery slope toward a world where nobody can ever prove the cause of anything. At the same time, just about everything is at least a mild carcinogen including food, the sun, air particulates, etc. But knowing that everything causes cancer isn't useful information. Knowing the strength of the correlations of each of these things is actually useful.

Without correlation, what are we left with?

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thereisnospork 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>Without correlation, what are we left with?

Mechanism. Testable causality. X causes cancer by doing y.

	▲	vlovich123 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Get out of here with your crazy talk. The only tool we have is statistics

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asdfasvea an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My retort is always:

Saying 'Correlation isn't causation' doesn't disprove causation.

	▲	41 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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lolakutty 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>is a kind of slippery slope..

Yea..

A deer in a forest who heard the foot steps of a lion and thought "hey Correlation is not causation" would soon be a goner...