文章基本信息

标题：Correlation, Causation, and Confusion
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作者：Nick Barrowman
期刊名称：The new Atlantis: A Journal of Technology & Society
印刷版ISSN：1543-1215
电子版ISSN：1555-5569
出版年度：2014
期号：43
出版社：Ethics and Public Policy Center
摘要：Causation has long been something of a mystery, bedeviling philosophers and scientists down through the ages. What exactly is it? How can it be measured — that is, can we assess the strength of the relationship between a cause and its effect? What does an observed association between factors — a correlation — tell us about a possible causal relationship? How do multiple factors or causes jointly influence outcomes? And does causation even exist “in the world,” as it were, or is it merely a habit of our minds, a connection we draw between two events we have observed in succession many times, as Hume famously argued? The rich philosophical literature on causation is a testament to the struggle of thinkers throughout history to develop satisfactory answers to these questions. Likewise, scientists have long wrestled with problems of causation in the face of numerous practical and theoretical impediments.