Question

Debate the following statement: "Correlation means Causation." Determine whether this statement is true or false, and provide reasoning for your determination, using the Possible Relationships Between Variables table from your textbook.

Answer 1

Thats FALSE.

The concept CORRELATION not automatically means CAUSATION.

Explanation:

Previous concepts

The correlation coefficient is a "statistical measure that calculates the strength of the relationship between the relative movements of two variables". It's denoted by r and its always between -1 and 1.

And in order to calculate the correlation coefficient we can use this formula:

`r=(n(\sum xy)-(\sum x)(\sum y))/(√([n\sum x^2 -(\sum x)^2][n\sum y^2 -(\sum y)^2]))`

Solution to the problem

Some useful concepts are:

Correlation is a statistical measure described with a number that describes the size and direction of a relationship between two or more variables. The correlation between variables, NOT mean that the change in one variable is the cause of the change in the values of the other variable.

Causation is a term refered to one event as the result of the occurrence of the other event for example, there is a causal relationship between event A and B like a cause and effect. One important thing to mention here is that the causation is not an easy concept to measure.

"The difference between the two types of relationships are easy to identify since one can be measured with a numerical value and the other no (Here is one example: smoking causes an increase in the risk of developing lung cancer), or it can correlate with another ( smoking is correlated with alcoholism, but it does not cause alcoholism)".

So is clear that the concept CORRELATION not automatically means CAUSATION.