dan: As a rule, with no exceptions I can think of, the gun nuts who throw out the "causation/correlation" line never have an intelligent alternate hypothesis for the empirical evidence. It's just an attempt to deny the obvious with a catchphrase they learned in junior high.
Agree mostly, since what they do throw out, like lott's ccw book 'more guns less crime', is generally so transparently pro gun propaganda, and thus not an intelligent alternate counter.
The axiom does not mean - 'causation can not follow from correlation', but that's how the rightwing generally likes to portray it when gun studies show a correlation between guns & more bad. As if the axiom itself proved 'more guns = less crime'.
More aptly - Causation can possibly follow from correlation'.
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ellisonz .. that while "is causation" is frowned upon .. a statement such as "the quantitative analysis indicates that the statistical significance of the correlations leads us to conclude that the probability that the relationship is causal is strong."
I usually see a correlation as being a corroboration towards causation. The more studies or examples you see with the same correlation, the more corroboration you have, & the greater the chance that there indeed is, a causal effect.
jto's CCCC hypothesis:'Reputable Corroborative Correlation increases the Chance of Causation'
But will it matter, ever? Gunworld would never accept any gun study which exposed the negative aspects of guns, they'd call it liberal junk science, &/or trash the source. Or if they couldn't do something like that they'd justify any negative aspect of guns with the old 'tree of liberty must be watered now & then', etc.... Rightwing concoctions are a dime a dozen.
David Hemenway of harvard & his JAMA gun(control) studies which are almost always well done & logical, get called biased & rigged by the pro gun crowd - the same crowd that disbelieves in global warming as a liberal scare tactic - like they'll ever have to live to see if it's true or not.
So we can turn out dozens of guncontrol studies & gain little headway, since they'd all get trashed or labelled junk, or 'peer reviewed' by rightwing statisticians as faulty or fraudulent, to get gobbled up by rightwing cretinism eager to have anything at all to counter liberals, the truth mattering not.
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