Scientific Definition
Correlation does not imply causation.
Plain-English Definition
Correlation does not imply causation.
Feynman Explanation
Ice cream sales and drowning deaths both rise in summer. Ice cream does not drown people.
Core Principle
Correlation does not imply causation.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Correlation does not imply causation.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Dashboards create false causality daily.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Ice cream sales and drowning deaths both rise in summer. Ice cream does not drown people.
Examples
- Two metrics move together and are assumed to have a causal link.
- Dashboards create false causality daily.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Demand a plausible mechanism and test for reverse causality.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Demand a plausible mechanism and test for reverse causality.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Reasoning that two things are alike based on shallow similarity.
Crediting a source or cause that isn't actually responsible.
Assuming that because B followed A, A caused B.
Presenting two options as the only possibilities when more exist.
Deriving general rules from specific examples; the leap from instance to concept.
The brain evolved to reason adaptively, not always truthfully, to reduce the cost of errors.
We solve problems by adding, even when subtracting would be better.
Assuming that if one option is true, another must be false, when both can be true.
Presuming a purposeful actor behind events that may have no actor at all.
What cannot be settled by experiment is not worth debating.
A finite set of well-defined instructions for solving a problem or performing a computation.
Every model simplifies reality; some are still useful.