Question

This week's topic of discussion will be "Does Correlation mean Causation?" Review datasets of your choice from Blackboard or from textbook (Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics 5th edition, chapter 8) and look at highly correlated variables. Explain why (or why not) one variable does not explain the outcome of the other even when they are highly correlated?

Answer 1

Causation takes a step further than correlation. It says any change in the value of one variable will cause a change in the value of another variable, which means one variable makes other to happen. It is also referred as cause and effect.

Example: When a person is exercising then the amount of calories burning goes up every minute. Former is causing latter to happen.

So now we know what correlation and causation is, it’s time to understand “Correlation does not imply causation!” with a famous example.

Ice cream sales is correlated with homicides in New York (Study)

As the sales of ice cream rise and fall, so do the number of homicides. Does the consumption of ice cream causing the death of the people?

No. Two things are correlated doesn’t mean one causes other.

Correlation does not mean causality or in our example, ice cream is not causing the death of people.