Correlation: Difference between revisions

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Well, in some cases you can, in some cases you can’t,<ref>There are whole websites devoted to spurious correlations. Like, well, http://www.spuriouscorrelations.com.</ref> but — irony upcoming — without a sophisticated theory of ''causality'', it will be hard to tell them apart. That is to say, a bare [[correlation]] won’t tell you whether there is a causal arrow at all much less, if there is one, which way it flows.
Well, in some cases you can, in some cases you can’t,<ref>There are whole websites devoted to spurious correlations. Like, well, http://www.spuriouscorrelations.com.</ref> but — irony upcoming — without a sophisticated theory of ''causality'', it will be hard to tell them apart. That is to say, a bare [[correlation]] won’t tell you whether there is a causal arrow at all much less, if there is one, which way it flows.


“Correlation” is a synonym for ”coincidence”, though in its more fashionable usages among [[big data]] freaks this tends to be get somewhat, well, buried in the [[noise]]. There may be something profound, reflexive and ironic about this, but it's too early in the morning to figure out out. The more data you have the, the more noise to the [[signal]].
“Correlation” is a synonym for ”coincidence”, though in its more fashionable usages among [[big data]] freaks this tends to be get somewhat, well, buried in the [[signal-to-noise ratio|noise]]. There may be something profound, reflexive and ironic about this, but it's too early in the morning to figure out out. The more data you have the, the more noise to the [[signal-to-noise ratio|signal]].


===[[Correlation]] and [[causation]]===
===[[Correlation]] and [[causation]]===
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{{sa}}
{{sa}}
*[[Contract]]ual [[causation]]
*[[Contract]]ual [[causation]]
*{{br|The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect}} by {{author|Judea Pearl}}
*{{br|The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect}} by {{author|Judea Pearl}}


{{ref}}
{{ref}}