week 4. causality

One common source of bullshit data analysis arises when people ignore, deliberately or otherwise, the fact that correlation is not causation. The consequences can be hilarious, but this confusion can also be used to mislead. Confusing causality with necessity or sufficiency. Regression to the mean pitched as treatment effect. Milton Friedman's thermostat. Selection masked as transformation.

• Robert Matthews (2000) Storks deliver babies (p=0.008). Teaching Statistics22:36-38
• Case study: Traffic improvements

Supplementary reading

• Karl Pearson (1897) On a Form of Spurious Correlation which may arise when Indices are used in the Measurement of Organs. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 60: 489–498. For context see also Aldrich (1995).