Oh I’m very serious. I take social policy, things like DEI, very seriously. Social policy is important to get right, but it’s also important to get it right for the right reasons.
I know what a pattern is, that’s how I know what a correlation is (which is exactly what a pattern demonstrates) and I know that it is completely different than a demonstrated cause-effect relationship. I mean really come on do you really not understand this? I find that hard to believe. I don’t understand why you either don’t understand or more likely refuse to understand it or refuse to admit that it applies here. Why do you not appear to understand that a pattern, no matter how strong, can ONLY indicate correlation? (Especially when it’s only in an observational study, which is what these are. These are not experimental studies.) It can be a “strong correlation” yes, sure, but it’s still not a causal relation. And again there is nothing bad about correlation it’s one form of evidence but it does not demonstrate a cause-effect relationship.
Knowing the difference between correlation and causation is not “intellectual tripe” (it makes me sad to see someone whom I assume to be educated and intelligent say such a thing) it is crucial to understanding the world around us and working toward solutions that are effective to solve problems that we as society face. Getting that wrong can lead to disastrous outcomes for everyone. Getting it wrong leads to an inversion of policy to reality where policies are implemented as solutions to symptoms of problems that are in fact caused by completely different things leading to those solutions being completely ineffective. Or even worse policies that are detrimental to whole swaths of people because facts are being selectively distorted and misrepresented by those in power to support particular points of view. (I of course am going on the assumption that you want to solve problems and not create more of them.)
Being willfully blind to the difference just because it at the moment it is convenient and supports a particular point of view that you happen to agree with is fallacious and shortsighted reasoning. It is intellectually dishonest and a trap. It ends up being no different than those that go around spouting slogans like “fake news” in fact it’s exactly what those people do, in addition to calling ideas they disagree with “intellectual tripe” simply because their positions are fundamentally illogical and indefensible.
Listen I’m not trying to insult you, personally attack you or anything like that, I enjoy this kind of lively debate. This is exactly the kind of thing that make DEI great. It’s different points of view hopefully trying to circle into a common ground. I’m just trying to get you to the point where you understand that there is a difference between a correlation (a pattern) and a cause (cause and effect) and that it is not a meaningless difference and because there is no additional evidence, beyond the observational studies, it applies to this situation just as it does to any other observational study. Because it’s a really important difference.
