Episode 679 - Correlation doesn't equal causation
Mar 18, 2024
The phrase “Correlation doesn't equal causation” is something associated with science and statistics but it really applies to EVERYTHING and that's important to understand. But was does it mean? If a bunch of things happened at the same time, those things aren't necessarily related or causal. An example Tantz gives is that statistics show in the summer there are more drownings and that people eat more ice cream. That means that those two things are correlated. We know they aren't causal though: ice ream doesn't drown people and people drowning don't cause people to eat more ice cream… the third hidden variable is that it's summer: it's the rise in temperature that causes people to want more ice cream and to swim more, which increases the chances of drowning.
Topics and Show Notes
I was thinking of the correlation causation fallacy when I was musing on the topic of history. There's this idea that if you know a lot about history it will give you a lot of information on current events, but this is heavily flawed by our tendency to create artificial connections between events, we come up with stories that sound good and plausible and make us feel better for why things are connected. Think of all the pop-science and pop-history books that come out and easily explain world events and complicated things in history. They're all pretty much bullshit because they fall for the causation fallacy: this happened which caused this, that and this, rather than things all happening at the same time for other reasons. This is also related to the hindsight fallacy, where we look back at events and incorrectly think a conclusion should have been obvious because we can see how things ended.
Because of this, while knowledge of history is very useful, that use is more limited than we think so it helps to know current events too, especially from an outside perspective so that we're not as fooled by false connections and mistaken causal relationships.
But why do I say this affects everything? Any story you hear or come up with to explain something is a victim of this. My Quackcast topics on the evolution of elves or goblins in fantasy are a victim of this, when people talk about the motivating factors of a serial killer they do this, when we talk about WW2, the current Israeli/Palestinian conflict, or the reason you drink coffee in the morning we fall afoul of these fallacies. It's what drives conspiracy thinking, folk histories and urban myths.
It even affects things like self image: are we influenced by the images we see or are the images we see influenced by how we want to look or are there other factors?
A key example we mention in the Quackcast was a pop-science story about how the use of lead in fuel made people dumber and lead to more violence. A truly moronic conclusion, very easily debunkable and yet people as esteemed as pop-sceince communicator Veritasium were fooled by it. I realise I fall afoul of it every time I come up with a story for what influenced me to do comics, photography, or cosplay- I have at least 5 different stories that explain anything I do, all of them make sense and seem perfectly true to me at the time, but in reality they're a product of the hindsight bias, the causation fallacy and being selective with data and variables.
Can you think of a time you've fallen afoul of this? If you can't you're probably not thinking hard enough ;)
This week Gunwallace did not have time for a new theme but he suggested that we put up the theme to PleaseRewind again because it's a great comic that is currently being reposted! PleaseRewind - Quiet threat, creepy, seeping, strumming, thrumming, coming CLOSER, inside, peering around, waiting to begin. This is a quiet track filled with an undertone of urgency suggested by the constant quick rhythm and lonely guitar.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Sandra's Day - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/mar/12/featured-comic-sandras-day/
Featured music:
PleaseRewind - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Classic_Please_Rewind/ - by Paneltastic, rated T.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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next Quackcast: Intelligence in fiction
Episode 676 - Baby it's cold outside, cultural context
Feb 26, 2024
Oh baby it's cold outside… That's a tricky song, well it's not really but a few years ago the silly pop-culture warriors on Twitter started acting as if the song was all “rapey” with the male in the song trying to pressure the woman into sex. The problem was they were absolutely ignorant of the correct cultural context in quite a misogynist way.
Episode 670 - Wise use of influence
Jan 15, 2024
This Quackcast is about using influence wisely! I had a DD comic creator come to me, apparently a bit distressed at some of the things we'd said in our last Quackcast about drawing adult comics- they had decided to delete their entire webcomic. I checked on google and it turns out they deleted it everywhere, not just DD, even down to their twitter! I've since talked to them some more and got more of the story and made sure they were ok but it was pretty alarming at the time nevertheless.
Episode 659 - Happy Halloween 2023
Oct 30, 2023
Happy Halloween! The time of spookiness and ghosts. Spooks messed up the cast so the sound quality is really bad I'm afraid, I tried to do what I could to fix it though. This week Banes, I, and Tantz are chatting about Halloween and related subjects like scary movies and things. I personally only like comedy horror, or whacky horror films where things are taken too far so I don't identify with the characters and feel bad because of it. I find I identify with characters in film far too much (if it's realistic), the genre doesn't matter, it can be comedy, horror, murder mystery, romance whatever, so that means if the tone is too tragic and depressing it usually makes me feel extremely down. For that reason a lot of horror doesn't appeal to me unless I can distance myself from the characters somehow. So comedy helps, or if it's super-over-the-top and whacky like The Nun.
Episode 654 - tropes vs character growth
Sep 25, 2023
Today we're chatting about characters who're mainly based on tropes VS those that grow. You see this difference quite clearly in a lot of British comedy VS American comedy where characters are set up in certain ways, e.g. the nerd, the sassy one, the mature one etc- in British stuff they tend to revert to type, which is their most important trait, while in American stuff they tend to change and grow based on interactions and experiences. There are MANY exceptions though and one way isn't inherently better than the other.
Episode 649 - Gendered clothing
Aug 21, 2023
When you're drawing people in a webcomic one of the common ways to indicate gender is by outfits, but why are clothes gendered at all and is that a constant?
Episode 637 - Rumours
May 28, 2023
Rumours can be damaging stories deliberately spread to harm people, they can grow organically of their own accord. Salacious rumours replace truth and stick around in history, like the silly stories of Catherine the Great and horses, Nero fiddling while Rome burned, Marie Antoinette saying “let them eat cake”, or the famously wealthy Roman general Crassus dying by having molten gold poured on his head. All rumours and silly stories but they become stronger than real history. Then there's the notorious story of poor Fatty Arbuckle and how he supposedly killed a woman during a sexual act due to his ‘enormous bulk“. A complete and utter fabrication but it destroyed his career and is still believed today.
Episode 636 - The Cusscast
May 22, 2023
We're talking about swearing! Swearing in comics, types of swearing, the use of swearing, causing offense, taking offense, swearing used as a term of endearment, and some history behind various types of swearing. We barely even scratch the surface! We don't swear in the Quackcast if we can help it so we're talking around and about the language without using it, though we DO swear in our Patreon vid, which is free to all patrons, even the $1 level.
