“The invalid assumption that correlation implies cause is probably among the two or three most serious and common errors of human reasoning.”

Source: The Mismeasure of Man (1996), p. 272

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The invalid assumption that correlation implies cause is probably among the two or three most serious and common errors…" by Stephen Jay Gould?
Stephen Jay Gould photo
Stephen Jay Gould 274
American evolutionary biologist 1941–2002

Related quotes

Nelson DeMille photo
Frank Herbert photo

“Most deadly errors arise from obsolete assumptions.”

Source: Children of Dune

John Peckham photo

“Among all the studies of natural causes and reasons, light most delights the contemplators”

John Peckham (1227–1292) Archbishop of Canterbury

Perspectiva communis, translated by, and appearing in the notebooks (C.A.<sub>543r</sub>) of Leonardo da Vinci, as quoted by Martin Kemp, Leonardo Da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man (2006) p. 112.
Context: Among all the studies of natural causes and reasons, light most delights the contemplators; among the great things of mathematics, the certainty of its demonstrations most illustriously elevates the minds of its investigators; perspective must therefore be preferred to all human discourses and disciplines, in the study in which radiant lines are expounded by means of demonstrations and in which the glory is found not only of mathematics, but also physics: it is adorned with the flowers of one and the other.

Ernest Dimnet photo

“You are not to disbelieve human science or think human reason invalid except when they venture outside their province.”

Ernest Dimnet (1866–1954) French writer

Source: What we live by (1932), p. 31

John Lancaster Spalding photo

“It is a common error to imagine that to be stirring and voluble in a worthy cause is to be good and to do good.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 274

John S. Bell photo

“The idea that elimination of coherence, in one way or another, implies the replacement of 'and' by 'or', is a very common one among solvers of the 'measurement problem.”

John S. Bell (1928–1990) Northern Irish physicist

It has always puzzled me.
Against 'measurement' (1990)

William Gilbert (astronomer) photo
John Allen Paulos photo

“Correlation and causation are two quite different words, and the innumerate are more prone to mistake them than most.”

John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 5, “Statistics, Trade-Offs, and Society” (p. 159)

John Robert Seeley photo

“… The chief forces which hold a community together and cause it to constitute one State are three, common nationality, common religion, and common interest.”

John Robert Seeley (1834–1895) British historian

p. 50 https://books.google.com/books?id=Zsm3TLe1cAUC&pg=PA50
The Expansion of England (1883)

Related topics