Critical thinking: the confounding variable
MAY 16, 2024
∙ PAID
You hear it many times: “Correlation doesn’t equal causation.”
Example: 30 people in a town fall ill. The CDC, correlating these people with COVID symptoms—“fever, fatigue, cough, and elevated temperature”—declare them COVID cases. COVID is the cause of their health issues.
But there is a confounding variable. Meaning an element that confounds (disrupts, contradicts) this analysis. A sudden release of noxious air from a nearby factory.
Therefore, correlation didn’t point to the inevitable “COVID” cause.
But how about this? In a city, in various clinics and drug stores, 30 people get COVID shots on the same day, and they all immediately fall ill. Very ill. That’s a correlation. A very convincing one.
It certainly seems to indicate the cause: the vaccinations.
There is no pure logic to consult, to come up with a conclusion.
Critical thinking involves common sense.
Yes, it’s theoretically possible that some unknown cause(s) was a confounding factor, and the vaccine wasn’t the cause of illness. But the circumstances of the situation, and common sense, dictate how to apply critical thinking.
In that situation, you’re going to say correlation DOES equal causation.
So…you have to take things on a case by case basis.
Sometimes correlation does and sometimes it doesn’t equal causation.
This also shows you that logic and critical thinking aren’t always the same thing. Meaning there isn’t always an overriding hard and fast rule you can follow.
When I was writing AIDS INC. in 1987, I had reached the conclusion that HIV didn’t cause AIDS. It would be years before I realized there was no proof viruses existed.
A person challenged my conclusion about HIV. He said, “Research teams have been doing antibody tests for HIV all over Africa and the tests are coming up positive for HIV.”
He was pointing to thousands of people who had what were called AIDS symptoms, and the correlation between those people and the antibody tests they’d been given—which were positive for HIV.
So I looked for a confounding factor. Eventually, I found it:
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