When correlation is better than causation
narrator.ai
When correlation is better than causation
1–10 of 41 posts
Re: When correlation is better than causation
#2Tl;Dr: never, but causality is hard to establish much of the time, so sometimes we must do without. To be honest, I don't find this very convincing. Most of the insights seem pretty obvious. Like if you're working from the point of correlating totals across differently sized legs of an experiment, you're starting from a really bad place.
Personally, I'm not quite positive that I buy that causation is that hard to establish in many cases. Don't give up on that idea. One thing I would say is that if you have a strong prior reason to believe that one thing causes another thing, finding that they are strongly correlated, that can be a useful datum. Mainly the important thing is to understand the limitations of correlation to guide decisionmaking.
Re: When correlation is better than causation
#3[deleted]
Re: When correlation is better than causation
#4https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning
> [Abductive reasoning] starts with an observation or set of observations and then seeks the simplest and most likely conclusion from the observations. This process, unlike deductive reasoning, yields a plausible conclusion but does not positively verify it. Abductive conclusions are thus qualified as having a remnant of uncertainty or doubt, which is expressed in retreat terms such as "best available" or "most likely". One can understand abductive reasoning as inference to the best explanation.
> In the 1990s, as computing power grew, the fields of law, computer science, and artificial intelligence research spurred renewed interest in the subject of abduction.
Abductive reasoning is basically how one would formally describe 1) the practice of medicine, including diagnosis, 2) the rules for evidence in legal trials, 3) the process for generating hypotheses in science, and innumerable similar activities we undertake daily.
And for obvious reasons there's a close relationship between abductive reasoning and Bayesian statistics.
Re: When correlation is better than causation
#5Tl;Dr: never, but causality is hard to establish much of the time, so sometimes we must do without. To be honest, I don't find this very convincing. Most of the insights seem pretty obvious. Like if you're working from the point of correlating totals across differently sized legs of an experiment, you're starting from a really bad place. Personally, I'm not quite positive that I buy that causation is that hard to est…
starting with correlation and asserting causation is bad, starting with causation and using correlation as weak evidence is good.
Re: When correlation is better than causation
#6Tl;Dr: never, but causality is hard to establish much of the time, so sometimes we must do without. To be honest, I don't find this very convincing. Most of the insights seem pretty obvious. Like if you're working from the point of correlating totals across differently sized legs of an experiment, you're starting from a really bad place. Personally, I'm not quite positive that I buy that causation is that hard to est…
starting with correlation and asserting causation is bad, starting with causation and using correlation as weak evidence is good.
Precisely (or to be really specific, starting with a suspicion of causation and using correlation as one piece of weak evidence).
Re: When correlation is better than causation
#7Tl;Dr: never, but causality is hard to establish much of the time, so sometimes we must do without. To be honest, I don't find this very convincing. Most of the insights seem pretty obvious. Like if you're working from the point of correlating totals across differently sized legs of an experiment, you're starting from a really bad place. Personally, I'm not quite positive that I buy that causation is that hard to est…
I think you'd find Judea Pearl's work interesting.
Re: When correlation is better than causation
#8If you like this, you may be interested in my episode about Cargo Cults, and the value of letting go of causality completely:
https://mattasher.com/2020/04/29/the-filter-podcast-episode-...
Re: When correlation is better than causation
#9Tl;Dr: never, but causality is hard to establish much of the time, so sometimes we must do without. To be honest, I don't find this very convincing. Most of the insights seem pretty obvious. Like if you're working from the point of correlating totals across differently sized legs of an experiment, you're starting from a really bad place. Personally, I'm not quite positive that I buy that causation is that hard to est…
I think you'd find Judea Pearl's work interesting.
To be honest my understanding of math and statistics is far too basic for me to really approach this guy's work, in all likelihood. I have read some papers in this space, like the original TrueSkill paper[1], and I found them utterly impenetrable. I'm sure with sufficient practice I could learn but there are so many things to spend time on. I love the concepts and I do think that they are fascinating tools for modeling reality. I'm glad other people are developing them.
[1]: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...
Re: When correlation is better than causation
#10I sort of feel like this: correlation is not causality, but they are correlated nonetheless.