26.29 Dependency, correlation, and causation

• Probability and statistics in general are concerned with dependency and correlation

• Dependency occurs when two+ variables are known to affect each other (without any indication of cause and effect)

  • Correlation describes two dependent continuous variables

• Probability and statistics usually do not involve judgments about causation

  • Randomized control trials can prove causation (in some circumstances)

    • by isolating the randomized variable from dependencies

  • There are sophisticated methods for attempting to prove causation without randomized control trials... we won’t discuss