It is often easy to relate a particular thing to a certain cause by association, but it is very important in science to also understand causation; why a certain thing is caused by something else. If a ...

Most of us have heard the phrase “correlation does not equal causation”. But understanding how scientists move beyond identifying correlations to establish causation remains a mystery to many. Finding ...

When we notice a change in the world, or in a lab, scientists wonder what caused the change. But how do we figure that out? It seems like a simple question, but there are numerous pitfalls along the ...

IN THE mid-1990s, an algorithm trained on hospital admission data made a surprising prediction. It said that people who presented with pneumonia were more likely to survive if they also had asthma.

We are at a critical time and supporting science journalism is more important than ever. Science News and our parent organization, the Society for Science, need your help to strengthen scientific ...

You often hear the admonition “correlation does not imply causation.” But what exactly is causation? Unlike correlation, which has a specific mathematical meaning, causation is a slippery concept that ...

The rooster thinks he summons the sun because the sunrise always follows his crow. Correlation, at its worst, is a very confident rooster. For decades, our data economy has run on the same illusion: ...

After reading Dalton Conley’s piece on recent developments in social-science research (“The Data in Your Lap: How to Interpret Naturally Occurring Experiments,” The Review, December 19), I can only ...