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comte7092 | 8 months ago

If causality were transitive the phrase “correlation doesn’t equal causation” wouldn’t exist

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tshaddox|8 months ago

Surely that's incorrect. The most obvious scenario is A causes B, B correlates with A, but B does not cause A. Whether causality is transitive is irrelevant.

comte7092|8 months ago

The quote is typically brought up when there isn’t a direct causal relationship between two variables, not when the causality is reversed. e.g. ice cream sales and drownings. In both cases heat drives behavior, but neither cause each other.