This objection introduces us to a pervasive source of bullshit. People take evidence about the association between two things, and try to sell you a story about how one causes the other. Circumcision is associated with autism. Constipation is associated with Parkinson’s disease. The marriage rate is associated with the suicide rate. But this doesn’t mean that circumcision causes autism, nor that constipation causes Parkinson’s, nor that marriage causes suicide. It is human nature to infer that when two things are associated, one causes the other. After all, we have evolved to find patterns in
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