To address your correct criticism, how about we modify apophenia’s “15” words to:
• If two things are reliably correlated, there is causation. Either A causes B, B causes A, they have common cause, or they have a common effect you’re conditioning on.
A 15-word version is possible but awkward:
• Reliable correlation implies causation: one causes the other, or there’s common cause, or common effect.
Potentially a great deal of complexity is smuggled into the word “reliable”.
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Edit: A friend pointed out to me that the above sentences provide unbalanced guidance for intuitions. A more evenly balanced version is:
• Reliable correlation implies causation and unreliable correlation does not.
To address your correct criticism, how about we modify apophenia’s “15” words to:
• If two things are reliably correlated, there is causation. Either A causes B, B causes A, they have common cause, or they have a common effect you’re conditioning on.
A 15-word version is possible but awkward:
• Reliable correlation implies causation: one causes the other, or there’s common cause, or common effect.
Potentially a great deal of complexity is smuggled into the word “reliable”.
--
Edit: A friend pointed out to me that the above sentences provide unbalanced guidance for intuitions. A more evenly balanced version is:
• Reliable correlation implies causation and unreliable correlation does not.