REN R205 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Sexually Transmitted Infection, Bufo, Xenophobia
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Sometimes it is a matter of direct observation but not often. Causal explanations always include some sort of plausible cause-effect hypothesis. But we are always told, correlation is not causation! true. We also use experiments to test for cause and effect. Compare the treatment with the control (the treatment is the hypothesized cause) (look for correlations with the treatment) But the real reason that correlation is not causation is that science is inductive, and the conclusions are never certain. Unless we can observe causation directly, correlation is the closest we can get to understanding causation. One rigorous design (from medicine) is the double blind experiment . Subject does not know which is the treatment/control. But this is very rare in ecological experiments. And found to be identical to those in 1. It turns out that most of medical research is in some sense, wrong . The difficult task of establishing cause and effect in animal conservation.