[spacebanana7]

I disagree strongly with this mathematised notion of causality. Two things can be perfectly correlated at all observed points in history without necessarily being causal. There can always be some unknown variable driving change in both.

[ibeff]

That's what the author deals with in the first part of the article on observational studies. Randomized studies don't have that problem.

[ekianjo]

Or they can also not be related at all and just happen by pure coincidence.

[ibeff]

Right but we have the tools to rule that out. That's what the field of statistics deals with. It tells you with mathematical certainty how likely or unlikely the correlation you're observing is to be random.

[ekianjo]

Statistics never give you certainty. You get probabilities.

[ibeff]

I can't tell if you're intentionally misrepresenting what I said. I said we can tell with certainty "how likely or unlikely" something is, i.e. we can precisely calculate the probability.