rationalskepticism.org

archibald wrote:"Empirically observed covariation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for causality" aka "correlation does not imply causation" is pretty damn philosophical

Here's something I would suggest from my own experience: you often figure out the larger puzzle by working out in the trenches. If you spend enough time as a grunt doing real world data and stats, the claim "correlation does not imply causation" won't be philosophy. It'll be tautology.

Tautology does not imply causation. The tautologies come after the real work. Philosophy isn't being applied. It's just commentary.

I am reminded of Kepler and his laws of planetary motion. His achievement was built on the backs of countless hours of data collection.