Re: Pim and Russell - Food for Thought

Pim van Meurs (entheta@eskimo.com)
Fri, 20 Jun 1997 19:35:03 -0400

>
>Of course a correlation is not a causation. Perhaps criminals who are less
>likely to repeat their mistakes are more likely to be involved in a prison
>fellowship program ?
>To use this as support of the transformative value of Christian worldview
>requires a bit more evidence than a mere correlation.

CW: Wrong. Causation is proof.

But correlation isn't. And that's all that was shown

CW: Correlation is probabilistic evidence. Jim cites other probabilistic
evidence. Where is yours?

Irrelevant. Probabilistic evidence is not evidence of causality but
evidence of a correlation. To show causality you have to show that the
correlation is not spurious, due to confounding factors and that the
reverse causal direction does not apply.