[zubi]

If you take a statistics class, one of the very first things that are taught is to be careful not to infer a wrong cause-effect relation when presented with a "correlation".

A typical example is "given any city, there is a strong correlation between number of churches and number of crimes commited." This is pretty much true everywhere in the world but that does not imply one is causing the other. This correlation can simply be the natural outcome of more populous cities having both in higher numbers compared to less populated ones.

[austincheney]

I have found it is pretty common for people to use simplified justifications, such as cause and effect, to support their conclusions on a subject. If the relationship between the cause and the effect is not clearly stated it is very common that they may not be properly reversed during backwards analysis from an end point to a start point. In that case the qualifying behavior is a form of cognitive conservatism demonstrated through a selective bias.

While that form of thinking may sound incredibly stupid, example: how could a person confuse a cause for its effect, it is exceedingly common. I have seen incredibly smart people make this mistake. The mistake is the non-cognitive behavior at play that unduly influences what is otherwise a very logical and straight forward conclusion. Objectivity is a practicable personality trait not aligned to logic or math skills.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cart_before_the_horse

[maest]

You know, I've never found a rigorous definition of what "causality" actually is.

Like, I know what "correlation" is: slap a regression on A and B and see what comes out (after considering heteroscedasticity and friends). But, for causation, how does one find it?

Is causation even a well defined concept? In most disaster analysis situations you see that failure wasn't caused by a single factor but it came as a result of a combination of different factors which, on their own, are benign.

If someone is crossing the road while checking thir phone (so not paying attention) and a drunk driver hits them with their car, what "caused" the accident?

Do phones "causes" accidents? Does drunk driving "cause" accidents?