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

   "Correlation is not causation"  ?

▲ christina97 a few seconds ago | parent | next [-]

No, because no correlation was proved. It’s just a flawed methodology.

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

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.

	▲	43 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...