This is of course worth remembering when reading scientific studies. Just because x goes up if y goes up it doesn't mean that y causes x to go up. There are lots of examples especially in the world of diet.....
This is of course worth remembering when reading scientific studies. Just because x goes up if y goes up it doesn't mean that y causes x to go up. There are lots of examples especially in the world of diet.....
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Just because he definitely deserves the credit for a great comic... This is an xkcd strip - http://xkcd.com/552/
Thanks John.
I've now linked the cartoon to its source
Excellent!
Glad you enjoyed it. I thought it very relevant to the crossfit "black box" approach of inputs and outputs--we might not know exactly how and why our specific training protocols are improving our fitness, but if we see that something is working, we go with it. We're not so concerned with what causes what--we care about the results.
When reading XKCD comics allways read the image's title tag as well. In this case: "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."
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