Stop falling for misleading headlines. Understand the difference between correlation and causation, and learn how researchers prove real scientific facts.

Correctly distinguishing between correlation and causation is critical because it influences how treatments for illnesses are devised and tested. Also, in the context of the law, it ensures that as ...

The rooster thinks he summons the sun because the sunrise always follows his crow. Correlation, at its worst, is a very confident rooster. For decades, our data economy has run on the same illusion: ...

A comment posted by a reader on a recent post reprimanded me for suggesting that marijuana caused relationships to go bad. In this instance the reader was mistaken, as I had specifically used the word ...

Shark attacks and ice cream sales follow the very same trajectory when charted. When ice cream sales go up, so do shark attacks. When ice cream sales decrease, shark attacks decrease. With a ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about the broad intersection of data and society. As machine learning has expanded beyond its roots in the worlds of ...

"I read it as a joke!" one student chortled. "It definitely wasn't completely serious, was it?" another asked as she shook her head in disbelief. The intimate group of nine students—which includes a ...

A comment posted by a reader on a recent post reprimanded me for suggesting that marijuana caused relationships to go bad. In this instance the reader was mistaken, as I had specifically used the word ...