One easy dumb trick I use to filter out "interesting" results that are likely just getting causality backwards is to flip the title around and see if it immedia

One easy dumb trick I use to filter out "interesting" results that are likely just getting causality backwards is to flip the title around and see if it immediately sounds like an obvious truism. In the case of this article, it goes from: > Remote Software Developers Earn 22% More Than Non-Remote Developers To something like: > Higher-paid software developers more likely to be working remotely And at that point, yes, it's fairly obviously going to be true. Working remotely is a perk for those who prefer it so we should expect it to be positively correlated with other forms of compensation. I think all that your data really shows is a hidden variable: competence. Better software developers get paid more, work remotely more, and probably also get more paid time off, larger bonuses, and all sorts of other perks.