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Commentary: Don’t assume that one event caused another

Somewhere in your educational history, you learned that correlation does not infer causation. Just because one event occurs before another, or because two events occur simultaneously, does not mean that one event necessarily caused the other.

Here is an obvious example. Children grow in height while attending the seven years of elementary school (kindergarten to sixth grade). But time in school does not cause height. Secretion of hormones directed by the by the pituitary gland during the elementary years causes physical growth. Time is associated with growth but the relationship is not causal.

A proud parent says, “We are so happy to have moved into this neighborhood.