PHIL 12 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: High School Dropouts, Where We Are, Risk Assessment
Document Summary
Phil 12 lecture 8 correlations between variables. Total average margin of error: +/- 3% at the 95% confidence level. American adults do not believe in climate chance: see if you can produce the 25 +/- 3% figure. Where we are and where we"re going: causal arguments: conclusion is that x causes y. Why do we care about correlations: because they can be critical for decision making under uncertainty, risk assessment. Involve comparisons between proportions, not just proportions themselves: deciding on a course of action always involves making some kind of comparison, deciding on policy, ex: rates of recidivism in norway vs. Us: norway has a much more successful and humane criminal justice/jail system than the us, selecting graduate schools, selecting medications, ex: contraception, can provide information on causes, ex: smoking causes cancer. If there is no correlation, there is no causation: however, correlation is not the sole factor in causation.
