It doesn't mean that we've said something about what will happen causally. Any causation . That's really good to hear. So also I think you talk about the different branches of thought related to formulating hypotheses and how they evolve to the processes of the present day.
ought to be at the fingertips of every educated person, that everyone should have some grasp of probability, of logic, of Bayesian reasoning, of distinguishing correlation from causation . I taught a course at Harvard as the pandemic unfolded called Rationality. It originated with some students who asked if I would teach a course in effective altruism-- that is, the use of rational evaluation of where
How's that for a cure? So causation became an obsession of the Cancer Schmancer movement. Because, you know, we're very reductionist in our medical thinking in Western medicine.
agency is part of what makes Thought A feel like it generates Thought B. determining causation . Now this is hard to swallow at first glance.
On that data, we're not saying that it's the sex itself that's causing people to live longer. We're I guess it's it's hard to establish causation in terms of Yeah. It's not necessarily sex, but they've looked at like they try to control for other things like age and coorbidities and all these studies and um it's also like sex is a cardiovascular workout, right? For many people is a cardiovascular workout. You
They engage in logical reasoning. They distinguish correlation from causation . They kind of have to, because that's the only way in which you can master reality.
So I get it. Correlation is not causation . But it's kind of hard to not see a relationship between the rise in all of this communication, digital communication, and the reduction
In any case, the point is, to make the right thing lucrative and the wrong thing not lucrative and I think this fourth estate principle that has deep roots in democracy is kind of how if it lacks clear causation .
Randy, what do you see? Randy: Correlation is not causation . Robert Lustig: Right. Correlation is not causation . That's one.
i mean in almost all of social science research as i'm sure you know there there is you know causation uh correlation is not causation right so um you know there is no no one would would say there is a a causal link from from the data but there is a
And so they are the pioneers of a new shift in the way we think about medicine. And it's much more causation -based, and it's much more looking at the whole body as a system, not just the pod that appears to be broken, which is a style of medicine that comes out of war medicine.
where the cotton fiber was turned using the machines into the textiles, which were then taken back down to Africa. This is a whole chain of causation through hundreds of years of history and then millions of years of our planetary past that explains
What was the goal? And was it correlation versus causation ? Which you find a lot in nutrition studies, because if you think about it, it's really hard to determine if an apple a day is good for you
And they said, no, the problem is we need to put some people back in. So humans are very much about causation .
So all they're saying is that if you attain, if you understand reality, what Buddha's discovery is, that when you fully understand reality, which again, is a revolutionary claim Realistic world view is acceptance of causation .
So all they're saying is that if you attain, if you understand reality, what Buddha's discovery is, that when you fully understand reality, which again, is a revolutionary claim But why is acceptance of causation the beginning of the path of realism?
that light up when you have delicious food or great sex-- light up as well. So there is some evidence that the causation goes in that direction. Anyway, as I say, I think a lot of people in the effective altruism movement do find this a fulfilling and rewarding thing to do.
And the privacy guys are just up in arms. And the difference between correlation and causation .
I don't really care about the causation versus correlation factor.
There's no clear chain of causation .
Do we think that correlation is the same as causation ?
- But how can you tease out what's causation and what's just correlation?
We emphasized this whole art and science of separating correlation and causation as being a really important part of the overall House of AI--
You might have heard the saying “Correlation doesn’t equal causation .” But there's more to it than that.
A deeply political statement to infer from the sine of one of the coefficients-- a little tiny multivariate regression. So it's a real excellent example of how correlation and causation get conflated. And then we spend some time thinking about, well, why is that?
And then we spend some time thinking about, well, why is that? Well, it's because causation does cause correlation. So it's reasonable to conflate them.
Another signal could be is this mixing correlation with causation ?
So they weren't trying to address correlation and causation .
that more sophisticated views as to the uniformity of causation would have been to the chicken's benefit.
their origins, their causation , in order to do long-end studies, Large-end studies of conflicts around the world
Maybe they give generously because they're happy. But there is some other evidence that may suggest causation . There's evidence of neuro-imaging studies where people are having their brains scanned in real-time.
agency is part of what makes Thought A feel like it generates Thought B. different senses of agency or your feelings of causation .
agency is part of what makes Thought A feel like it generates Thought B. They actually have that very strong feeling that's how-- of causation .
And again it's not clear what the direction of causation is.
that happens you know has so many strings of um of causation and we we'd
They have to separate... The causation and motivation are often conflated, and not just by students but also by lots of talking heads on
So you know, correlations don't imply causation , right?
And it's one of the few correlations that do an imply causation in the limited sense that there is no reverse causation .
Then they may be a slightly deeper understanding that I'm able to do some causation , some connections.
Sure. So as part of that about causation .
The question was, is that correlation because of causation ?
So all they're saying is that if you attain, if you understand reality, what Buddha's discovery is, that when you fully understand reality, which again, is a revolutionary claim That's Buddha is the one who argued for the existence of causation , so what are the causes of things, and how do you
--the answers do correlate. And of course, correlation is not causation . But it does seem that generous people tend to be happier.
It's not clear from the observational data what the direction of causation is, what causes what.
Randy: Correlation is not causation . Robert Lustig: Right. Correlation is not causation . That's one. Randy: Something else could be going on here, like, as you pointed out, sugar is going up at the same time.
Now, there's always a causation problem here.
war doesn't last nearly as long as it does. In terms of causation , if you take slavery out of the picture, there is no Civil War, period.
So today I'm going to talk about chapter seven, which is called "Causation , Collision, and Confusion." And the confusion part is serious.
So also I think you talk about the different branches of thought related to formulating hypotheses and how they evolve to the processes of the present day. So I think I don't know if that's related to the previous question about causation , but it would be great to get your thoughts on that as well. Yeah. One of the stories we want to tell is before the explosion of large data captured in information
Not because I think you're wrong, but I think you've got the correlation causation backward.