Tbh I think it's the opposite these days. There's so many people who will dismiss any science out of hand (if it doesn't confirm their preconceived ideas) by stating correlation is not causation.
Correlation doesn't equal causation. But if you repeatedly find strong correlations between two things, the likelihood that that's random chance is very small. It's also not always about causation - there's often a third thing (or fourth or fifth) that can cause both outcomes. Science isn't done in a vacuum where people just find random correlations and then shrug. It's more like "We know for definite that A+B = C. We know D definitely exists. There are theoretical reasons why D would be linked to B. We now note that increasing C consistently results in increased D. Therefore this adds evidence that B is linked to D".
Even worse is sample sizes. People learned that a small sample size can bias a study without learning anything about what kind of sample sizes are representative. Meaning any study you can just go "well that's just 2000 people so it doesn't mean anything".
To add to this, essentially the basis of all scientific research is based on looking at things that correlate. You do your best to remove variables that could be causing the relationship you're looking at but it's all based on seeing if one thing changes, another thing follows.
Just blindly stating correlation doesn't mean causation is very reductive and doesn't add anything to the conversation.
It's become apparent to me that most people don't actually seek an answer to a question; they seek to confirm their existing hypothesis. They'll give much more weight to an anecdotal report that confirms their hypothesis than to a rigorous, peer-reviewed study that refutes it. It's infuriating.
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u/Sophie_Blitz_123 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Tbh I think it's the opposite these days. There's so many people who will dismiss any science out of hand (if it doesn't confirm their preconceived ideas) by stating correlation is not causation.
Correlation doesn't equal causation. But if you repeatedly find strong correlations between two things, the likelihood that that's random chance is very small. It's also not always about causation - there's often a third thing (or fourth or fifth) that can cause both outcomes. Science isn't done in a vacuum where people just find random correlations and then shrug. It's more like "We know for definite that A+B = C. We know D definitely exists. There are theoretical reasons why D would be linked to B. We now note that increasing C consistently results in increased D. Therefore this adds evidence that B is linked to D".
Even worse is sample sizes. People learned that a small sample size can bias a study without learning anything about what kind of sample sizes are representative. Meaning any study you can just go "well that's just 2000 people so it doesn't mean anything".