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Peterdjones comments on Causal Diagrams and Causal Models - Less Wrong
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So you don't notice a lot of correlation-causation errors? I see them everywere. Practically every science story in the press.
How'd you get that from what I just said? Someone else making errors is not an excuse for you to do that too.
it works like this: If people in general are erring on the side of over-associating correlation with causation rather than under-associating, then "correlation is not causation" is the better rule-of-thumb.
Agreed. I'm sorry for for commenting about this before thinking things really through, that was very lazy and thoughtless.
However in the course of you people being nice and pointing out how foolish I was not only the obvious error was corrected, but it appears that I also gained an insight(finding out something I didn't know personally that is) into the matter. That being: In some cases you can estimate the probability of a correlation being merely coincidential versus it being the result of an actual causal relationship. Although since I'm not a mathematician I don't actually know how do that, except by looking at graphs and letting the brain do all the work. It does though sound a little silly.
Does someone know how to do that mathematically? Estimate the probability of a correlation being coincidential versus due to a causal relationship of an unknown type?