News headlines often compress complex science into a simple storyline: If two things are happening at the same time, one must ...

Businesses that rely on correlation will be misled with increasing confidence. Businesses that master causation will navigate complexity with increasing clarity.

Causation and correlation may sound alike but are very different. The former means the root of subsequent events, while the latter refers to an actual or apparent relationship between trends in which ...

With the explosion of interest in Big Data everyone in every department is looking for actionable intelligence. That’s great but there’s a downside: Trying to explain to, say, your VP of sales that ...

Russell has a PhD in the history of medicine, violence, and colonialism. His research has explored topics including ethics, science governance, and medical involvement in violent contexts. Russell has ...

CORRELATION, CAUSATION, AND BLOGGING....Kieran Healy is annoyed: You only have to hang around the world of social science research- or policy-related blogging for a few hours before you come across ...

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 ...

There’s an old saying that goes, “figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.” But sometimes even the figures can spin a confusing story. That’s why I’ve always appreciated the power of understanding ...

Hassan Vally does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...

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 ...

Public health is worsening, autism rates are rising — and so are incident conspiracy theories, including claims that the root of the autism evil is vaccines. As the CDC reopens the vaccine-link debate ...