How Correlation Between Two Variables Doesn’t Necessarily Prove That One Causes the Other

Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown of AsapSCIENCE explain the concepts of logical fallacy, lurking variables, confounding variables and show how correlation doesn’t necessarily prove causation.

Just because there is a correlation between two variables doesn’t mean that one causes the other. This assumption is a logical fallacy and yet we’re drawn to headlines like ‘people who have more sex make the most money’. Unfortunately this does not always equal that even though it may look like it.