Causal Inference – A Neglected Science?

I found some rather remarkable quotes on Charles S. Portwood’s site about causal inference (http://causalstatistics.org): “The development and utilization of Causal Statistics will eventually be as important to the non-experimental sciences as the codification and utilization of the scientific method was to the physical (i.e., experimental) sciences.” 1969 “It is beyond incredulity that, in the [...]

One of my pet peeves: spurious correlations

Excerpt from the EViews 6 manual: “Correlation does not necessarily imply causation in any meaningful sense of that word. The econometric graveyard is full of magnificent correlations, which are simply spurious or meaningless. Interesting examples include a positive correlation between teachers’ salaries and the consumption of alcohol and a superb positive correlation between the death [...]