Correlation and causation: a comment.
Some purely methodological comments are made on the pitfalls and difficulties in making causal inferences from observational data, including in studies of disparity in medicine. The ideas of spurious correlation and measurement error are discussed with an eye towards their impact upon inferences about causality, and cautions are offered about over-reliance upon testing hypotheses.
Stigler
Stephen
S
Department of Statistics, University of Chicago, Room 102, 1118 E. 58th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. stigler@galton.uchicago.edu
D015982:Bias; D015984:Causality; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data