Readers do not have to be scientists to witness this prohibition. In Statistics 101, every student learns to chant, “Correlation is not causation.” With good reason! The rooster’s crow is highly correlated with the sunrise; yet it does not cause the sunrise. Unfortunately, statistics has fetishized this commonsense observation. It tells us that correlation is not causation, but it does not tell us what causation is. In vain will you search the index of a statistics textbook for an entry on “cause.” Students are not allowed to say that X is the cause of Y—only that X and Y are “related” or
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