The Subtleties In Causation Talk
Randomized controlled trials are a gold standard for good reason, but the notion of causation established here departs from the way we often use causal language, says blogger Tania Lombrozo.
by Tania Lombrozo
Jul 31, 2017
3 minutes
The gold standard for establishing a causal relationship — between, say, a drug and some health outcome — is a randomized controlled trial, or RCT.
RCTs are powerful for a few reasons.
First, RCTs involve an experimental manipulation of the causal factor of interest. Rather than merely observing a correlation between, say, chocolate consumption and levels of happiness in a large and diverse population, an RCT involves an on people's consumption of chocolate: People in one group are assigned to eat chocolate; people in another group are assigned to abstain. This ensures that if
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