Correlations are not causations, but well-established correlations provide guidance for future experimental work, and only the latter can unambiguously establish causation relationships.
For animals, understanding the physical causation governing the relationships between objects is a basic and critical cognitive requirement for survival.
Finally, we recognize that it is impossible to distinguish correlation from causation in our identified relationships between fecundity and behavior.
While correlation does not equal causation and the relationship between diabetes and brain health needs further study, the findings, if confirmed, could have significant implications for a large segment of the population.
In a rather simplified way, causation involves the relationship between at least two entities, an agent and a disease.
Finally, as our study is ecological in nature, our findings are unable to provide any information with regard to the direction of causation in the relationship between unemployment and prescription drug utilization.
Chang (1981) and Maddox and Antonovics (1983) were among the first ecologists who employed SEM in ecological research, clarifying the logical and methodological relationships between correlation and causation.
Although correlation is by no means causation, a potential explanation for the relationships between high-speed movement and changes in CK only being observed in backs is likely due to their greater high-speed running demands when compared to the forwards [ 1, 2, 4].
Similarly, the data is cross-sectional; as such claims of association, but not causation, can be made about the observed relationships between elevated depressive symptoms and injury.
Future work can look at how relationships between measurements change over time, and can provide temporal evidence for causation by examining network changes immediately preceding and following the start of pressors.
