3 ms·

correlation != causation

• oblio 9y ago
  Of course you'd say that, you tab user!
  • omginternets 9y ago
    Spoken like a space-using degenerate. (J.k.: spaces FTW)
• icebraining 9y ago
  Which is exactly what the article says.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • wlesieutre 9y ago
    > The model estimated that using spaces instead of tabs leads to a 8.6% higher salary (confidence interval (6%, 10.4%), p-value < 10^-10). (By predicting the logarithm of the salary, we were able to estimate the % change each factor contributed to a salary rather than the dollar amount). Put another way, using spaces instead of tabs was worth as much as an extra 2.4 years of experience. Maybe I'm not up on my statistics lingo, but saying "using spaces instead of tabs leads to a higher salary" sounds much more causal than "using spaces instead of tabs is correlated with a higher salary." If they're going to say something leads to something else, I don't see how that one's justified over the reverse: "having a higher salary leads to using spaces." Isn't that's just as valid a conclusion from the data?
    • icebraining 9y ago
      Yes, the word "leads" was an unfortunate choice.
• Kattywumpus 9y ago
  The interesting question is teasing out why the correlation occurs at all.
• DonHopkins 9y ago
  Maybe so, but does correlation !== causation?
• coldtea 9y ago
  Which doesn't matter. Correlation still: (a) implies causation (it's a necessary attribute of causation, just not a sufficient one). (b) makes it statistically more probable for someone to be making more money than another, if they use spaces and the other doesn't