Association We know association does not imply causation but

Association: We know association does not imply causation, but what does this mean in your own words. Provide and discuss an example of two variables that are associated but not by a cause and effect relationship.

Please do not explain/answer in just 1 or 2 sentences.

Solution

Note: I wouldn\'t submit the above solutions to my professor. They were copied verbatim from other websites. Your question clearly states that you must use \"your own words\". Using the above solutions, you risk your professor charing you with plagerism.

Just because two variables are related, it does NOT imply that changes in y are caused by changes in x. Without performing a carefully controlled experiment (not a observational study) where we control for confounding variables, we can not establish / imply causation.

Two classical examples are...

(1) There is a strong positive correlation between the number of firefighters at a fire (x) and the amount of property damage done by the fire (y). Does that mean that the fewer firefighters that we send to a fire, the better, i.e. the less property damage will result??? Of course not, both variables are affected by a third variable, i.e. the SIZE of the fire (z).

* The larger the fire, the more fire fighters.
* The larger the fire, the more property damage will be done by the fire.

Here, it would be INAPPROPRIATE to say more fire fighters cause greater fire damage.

(2) There is a strong positive correlation between ice cream sales (x) and the number of shark attacks at the beach (y). Does that mean that if sell less ice cream that there will be fewer shark attacks??? Of course not, both variables are affected by a third variable, i.e. the number of people visiting the beach (z).

* The more people that visit the beach, the more ice cream that will be sold.
* The more people that visit the beach, the more shark attacks will occur.

Here, it would be INAPPROPRIATE to say more greater ice cream sales will cause more shark attacks.

----------------

I hope this helped. If you have any questions, please ask them in the comment section. :)