Question

Jumping into conclusion when one sees correlation is the most logical mistake that people make. Expand this idea by citing at least two specific examples that you can relate to, based on your experience. (Include details when needed to better explain the idea).

Please advise

Answer 1

Often the logical mistake that people make when one sees correlation is that they immediate conclude that in the given two variables, the one variable causes that of the other, simply because two variables are found co-related.

For example, our Television cable, if connected to Direct-To-Home technology, may often fail to telecast channels when the weather is bad such as excessive rain or cyclonic winds blowing that could perhaps impede the satellite to send signals to our Direct-To-Home equipment. Having said that, it could not be concluded the other way round that because of the Television channels not being telecasted on screen, it certainly means that the weather has turned unfavorable. There could be in fact, various other reasons for the Television channels to behave in an inappropriate way such as technical fault of the equipment, etc. In this case, although the two variables were correlated but the correlation was not all conclusive. This is also called the ‘Third-cause’ fallacy.