Correlation versus causation: don’t fall for the fallacy.
Takeaway Points
- Just because two things are present together does not mean there is a causal relationship. (Correlation does not imply causation.)
- Democracies tend to be peaceful, but it could be that (1) peace causes democracy, (2) democracy causes peace ans simultaneously peace causes democracy, (3) something else causes both peace and democracy, or (4) democracy causes something else which causes peace, but something else also causes the “something else” and thus democracy alone does not do the dirty work.
- We cannot conclude that democracy inherently causes peace purely through the statistical result.