Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Superstitious "Science" - Correlation vs Causation


The Associated Press and National Geographic have run recent articles correlating CO2 to global warming, global warming to drought, and drought to war in Syria.  These "science" articles imply that CO2 caused the Syrian war.  The journalist "scientists" who wrote them obviously don't understand the logical fallacy of  post hoc ergo propter hoc, i.e., "after this, therefore because of this". The logical corollary is "correlation does not imply causation".  

In 1933, Syria experienced another severe drought.  Since Yo-Yos had recently been introduced to the country, Syrian leaders blamed the drought on Yo-Yos, and outlawed them.  The superstitious logic in blaming droughts on Yo-Yos and CO2 are equally fallacious.

Angel

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