A brief explanation of Causation and Correlation with examples

1. CORRELATION
V/S
CAUSATIION
BY : FARNAZ SHA

2. INTRODUCTION
oIn the world of data analysis, the phrase "correlation does not imply
causation" is fairly ubiquitous as a disclaimer on the interpretation of
a lot of evidence about how phenomena are related to one another.
o For example, when looking at a graph of SAT scores versus parental
income, you would be very likely to see this "correlation does not
imply causation" warning.
oSo What Are These Concepts And Why Does This Warning Matter?
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3. WHAT IS CORRELATION?
▣ It measures the degree to which two phenomena tend to happen
together
▣ For example, rain and carrying an umbrella are correlated.
▣ In fact, rain and carrying an umbrella are positively correlated
because a higher likelihood of rain tends to be paired with a higher
likelihood of carrying an umbrella, and vice versa.
▣ In contrast, snow and wearing flip flops are negatively correlated
because a higher likelihood of snow tends to be paired with a lower
likelihood of wearing flip flops, and vice versa.
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4. WHAT IS CAUSATION?
o It indicates that one phenomenon actually causes the other
phenomenon to happen.
o In the weather examples , it seems at least intuitively
plausible that rain would cause people to carry umbrellas and
snow would cause people to not wear flip flops.
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5. EXAMPLE OF CAUSATION & CORRELATION
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6. 3 POSSIBILITIES REGARDING CAUSATION
When two events, let's call them A and B, are correlated,
where are actually three possibilities for how the events
could be causally related :
1. It could be the case that event A causes event B.
2. It could be the case that event B causes event A.
3. It could be the case that some outside event C causes
events A and B
 Therefore, in order to determine the proper causal link
between events A and B, we have to rule out two of the
three possibilities
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7. EXAMPLE OF CORRELATION NOT BEING CAUSATION
The classic example of correlation not equaling
causation can be found with ice cream and
murder.
That is, the rates of violent crime and murder have
been known to jump when ice cream sales do.
But, presumably, buying ice cream doesn't turn you
into a killer
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8. “
While it is important to understand that correlation and
causation are not one and the same, the distinction between
the two concepts is not always important on a practical level
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