Correlation Does Not Imply Causation - Relation To The Ecological Fallacy

Relation To The Ecological Fallacy

There is a relation between this subject-matter and the Ecological fallacy, described in a 1950 paper by William S. Robinson. Robinson shows that ecological correlations, where the statistical object is a group of persons (i.e. an ethnic group), does not show the same behaviour as individual correlations, where the objects of inquiry are individuals: "The relation between ecological and individual correlations which is discussed in this paper provides a definite answer as to whether ecological correlations can validly be used as substitutes for individual correlations. They cannot." (...) "(a)n ecological correlation is almost certainly not equal to its corresponding individual correlation."

Read more about this topic:  Correlation Does Not Imply Causation

Famous quotes containing the words relation to the, relation to, relation, ecological and/or fallacy:

    You see, I am alive, I am alive
    I stand in good relation to the earth
    I stand in good relation to the gods
    I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful
    I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte
    You see, I am alive, I am alive
    N. Scott Momaday (b. 1934)

    To be a good enough parent one must be able to feel secure in one’s parenthood, and one’s relation to one’s child...The security of the parent about being a parent will eventually become the source of the child’s feeling secure about himself.
    Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)

    The instincts of the ant are very unimportant, considered as the ant’s; but the moment a ray of relation is seen to extend from it to man, and the little drudge is seen to be a monitor, a little body with a mighty heart, then all its habits, even that said to be recently observed, that it never sleeps, become sublime.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The hatred of the youth culture for adult society is not a disinterested judgment but a terror-ridden refusal to be hooked into the, if you will, ecological chain of breathing, growing, and dying. It is the demand, in other words, to remain children.
    Midge Decter (b. 1927)

    I’m not afraid of facts, I welcome facts but a congeries of facts is not equivalent to an idea. This is the essential fallacy of the so-called “scientific” mind. People who mistake facts for ideas are incomplete thinkers; they are gossips.
    Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)