Cause and effect

[huy.duong@ctsu.ox.ac.uk]

Dear anh Ai Viet and anh Tuan,

>  I think Cause and Effect is the Raison D'E^tre of Statistics even it is 
>not a problem of Statistics as Anh Huy said. The most beautiful thing of 
>Statistics is that it changes the way we think of Causality.

I thought the raison d'etre of statistics was to deal with varivations
that seem random to us. Statistics quantifies what we don't know from our 
measurements because of random variations. 

Even if we knew what was cause and what was effect, or if we were not
interested in determine which was which, we would still need statistics, eg 
measuring the mass of the electron. On the other hand, in the study of cause 
and effect, eg what causes the planets to orbit the sun and what causes the 
apple to fall, statistics does not play a fundamental role. So can you explain 
your statements?

>The 
>inter-dependence among organs in our body is so complicated 
>that it is thought impossible to make any inference on 
>causation. What we can say at most is association.

This is too strong. Surely you can say that breathing a high concentration
of CO a long time causes death rather that is only associated with it?

Huy