Disagree. Our target audience—humans—rarely if ever thinks of ‘correlation’ in terms of its mathematical definition and I suspect would be put off by an attempt to do so.
This is entirely true—as a mere human, my interest plummeted at “covariance”, and I’d still like to think I’m SOMEWHAT equipped to handle correlation/causation. Just not numerically. So, as a roughly average human, I say your suspicions are correct.
The point still applies. What do you mean by “correlation”—formally or informally—when one (or both) of the variables is constant across the population?
The specific fake argument used is flawed because of that. When people make the correlation-causation error, how often are they doing it based off of a variable that’s constant across the population? Do people ever really develop ‘drinking water causes x’ beliefs?
It’s a valid point and very true, but I suspect that it isn’t applicable to the issue at hand.
Disagree. Our target audience—humans—rarely if ever thinks of ‘correlation’ in terms of its mathematical definition and I suspect would be put off by an attempt to do so.
This is entirely true—as a mere human, my interest plummeted at “covariance”, and I’d still like to think I’m SOMEWHAT equipped to handle correlation/causation. Just not numerically. So, as a roughly average human, I say your suspicions are correct.
The point still applies. What do you mean by “correlation”—formally or informally—when one (or both) of the variables is constant across the population?
The specific fake argument used is flawed because of that. When people make the correlation-causation error, how often are they doing it based off of a variable that’s constant across the population? Do people ever really develop ‘drinking water causes x’ beliefs?
It’s a valid point and very true, but I suspect that it isn’t applicable to the issue at hand.