"Coincidence does not imply causation."
Correlation does not mean causation, but often it implies it
You said you'd disprove any link....you're taking the piss, right? You're conflating "any" with "every", which I can only assume is intentional because you are irritatingly specific with your wording.
further research then disproves any causal link
To use another silly example, there's a strong correlation between the distance between Neptune and the Sun, the viewership for "Days of our Lives" and the remaining Forest cover in the Brazilian Amazon. Now, we know that there is no causal link between any of these because there is literally no way for these to affect each other. Any.
1-3 data points is not a correlation. Coincidence is not a true correlation. You may mistake it for a correlation, but when it lacks predictive power you'll be able to confirm there is no correlation.
Not really. Correlation means there is a relationship. Causation is one of the many ways it can be related.
For example, about 10 years ago I looked at every US city with a population over 300,000 and compared the median income to homicide rate. There were low crime poor cities, high crime poor cities, and low crime rich cities. There were no high crime rich cities. With a sample that large, if the two variables were unrelated then there should be data points in all 4 corners. I'm confident that data showed a relationship between crime and income. There was a correlation.
But it's not causation. I cannot say that poverty leads to more people choosing a life a crime, that would be causation. I cannot say that more crime harms businesses and causes poverty, that would be causation in the other direction. Nor can I say they will always be related as other situations change. But in 2015, there was a correlation, those two factors were somehow related, and I suspect that correlation still exists today.
Ah ok so it...implies itSo, in discourse, implication means that you're making a suggestion, but that's not what's meant here. Logically speaking, "implication" means it's impossible for the cause to be true and the effect to be false. So no, implication doesn't imply causation. It might hint at it, but it's possible for the correlation to be there but the cause to actually be something else.
You're conflating "any" with "every", which I can only assume is intentional because you are irritatingly specific with your wording.Yes, and? "I can refute any link" is equivalent to "I can refute every link." It is not equivalent to "I can refute one link." And I was being specific with my wording on every single post I made regarding your claim, precisely so that you couldn't weasel out of it by changing its meaning (as you just tried to).
Logically speaking, "implication" means it's impossible for the cause to be true and the effect to be false. So no, implication doesn't imply causation.Science isn't a logic puzzle. Neither is statistics. These deal in probabilities, not absolute truth values. A statement like "correlation implies causation" can have exceptions and still be generally correct.
it's possible for the correlation to be there but the cause to actually be something else.That would still count as implying a cause. The correlation isn't the cause, but it implies another one.
Science isn't a logic puzzle. Neither is statistics. These deal in probabilities, not absolute truth values. A statement like "correlation implies causation" can have exceptions and still be generally correct.I should have known better than to expect CE to be interested in anything other than winning an Internet fight.
Yes, and? "I can refute any link" is equivalent to "I can refute every link." It is not equivalent to "I can refute one link."That is rich when in the same post you wrote
Also, logically speaking, there's a difference between "correlation implies causation" and "correlation always implies causation." And a difference between "correlation doesn't imply causation" and "correlation never implies causation."If you want to strawman me to win an internet argument, then save the electricity and do it in your head
That is rich when in the same post you wrote [a side-note about semiformal logic]You missed the part where I said logical definitions aren't applicable here. I'm not issuing a directive to differentiate between those statements. I'm just saying that under a logical system, they would be.
Remember when people were burning down 5G cell towers to prevent COVID? Many of the conspiracy theories arise due to correlation.5G and COVID were never actually correlated in any meaningful sense of the word.
There's also the classic: "As the number of pirates decreased, the average global temperature has increased".There's not a particularly strong correlation there, unless you pick and choose. You have far more samples where there are zero pirates and the global temperature is lower than today, than you have samples where there is any non-zero number of pirates, or higher temperatures.