Why We Falsely Link Effects to Causes When two things happen together, it’s tempting to believe that one caused the other. For example, in the previous chapter, we saw that the economy improved while crime rates dropped. This seems like a satisfying explanation, until the data show the economy couldn’t have had a large effect. In reality, many correlated phenomena are correlated purely by chance. This gives rise to the well-known saying, “correlation does not imply causation.” (Shortform note: this underlies a lot of popular superstitions, like people who wear their “lucky hats” to baseball games because they think it
Correlation vs Causation (Simple Explanation)
