causation

I would hope this HN crowd knows about correlation and causation.

BUT there's no causation here, as much as some people want to believe it. Reader didn't take off because most people didn't use it.

All together, now: Correlation is not the same thing as causation.

Now, attribute causation and come up with some pithy bullet points. Ta-da!

Correlation does not equal causation. Asking whether not programming in your spare time makes you a bad developer is the wrong question.

Correlation does not equal causation, of course. But when you look at the most successful/productive people in your circles, how many of them talk about work/life balance, have lots of hobbies, etc?

Correlation doesn't prove causation, so I can't blame the books and blogs -- but they certainly don't seem to be helpful either. edit: I meant this as a light-hearted observation, not as a put-down to anyone who finds self-help helpful.

What you felt as unfriendliness was the direct causation of the cheating cases. It is very difficult to feel like hanging out with students when feeling that a very significant fraction of the class is actively trying to cheat.

Sure, but this an obvious "correlation is not causation" situation and the reason for this is unpleasant. If you're from a middle-class background, you have to take full salary because that's the only money you have to live on.

Of course, we all know that correlation is not necessarily causation. It is nearly impossible for researchers to make a definitive case.

Correlation does not imply causation. People don't get rejected because they ARE Asian - it's usually the lack of differentiation.

Somehow I see no causation between a conference and the drunken comments by its attendees at a bar. Trying to argue that a conference organizer should hold some moral responsible for the people attending seems to me just ridiculous.

And as VLC is present on a lot of machines, it's simple to blame VLC. "Correlation does not mean causation" is something that seems too complex for cheap Dell support... Maybe Dell should advise against playing Metal music and should only allow Céline Dion music, because Metal saturates more...

It appears to confuse corellation and causation. It notices a difference in behavior between the "great" and the "average" and assumes those differences to cause the difference in ability.

There's a mixup in correlation and causation here. Similar mixed up conclusions are reached by people looking at other fantastically profitable companies.

This may be a correlation-vs-causation effect. It's possible that companies that are in poor markets and likely to do poorly in the next few years have to pay more to attract qualified CEO candidates, because good executives realize the shit the company is in and don't want to take the risk of a failure on their resume without being compensated significantly for it.

Pointing out that correlation does not equal causation is the very first most obvious criticism to make of a finding, but don't sail in with that criticism until you've made sure that causation wasn't actually suggested by legitimate research.

Causation or no causation. we need to rethink the whole idea of work anyway.