On Causality (and covariance)

Here I was planning to write all these Very Important Posts I had postponed for too long, when I stumbled upon this fabulous cartoon on causality (via Espen Andersen) – very apt for Saturday Morning.

Now, to stay with the deeper questions for a second or two: you may of course ask what the detour from those blog posts I planned to write signifies about my personal epistemology, or in plain talk: am I a scatterbrain, or is the web turning me into one? That's one of the serious things I was planning to blog about, but first this cartoon (translation below):

For those who can't read the text: During a convivial gathering there is talk of the unhygienic aspect of using galoshes. One of those present chips in: "Yes, I've also noticed this. Every time I've woken up with my galoshes on, I've had a headache."

Now, Espen's more serious point is that there's a lot of bogus stuff which passes for causality these days, to which he adds (and I'm paraphrasing him here): 'I mean, we all know that the supposed global temperature increase we're currently experiencing is due to the baby-boom-generation hitting the climacteric age with corresponding hot flushes, right?'

Since I've studied both philosophy and statistics, the latter as part of my politics degree, I found Espen's post particularly funny: always great to see issues academics argue about, with a huge arsenal of technical terms, brought down to a level where it's clear how it impacts on daily life. When I studied game theory I kept promising myself to write one short story for each or the different games to make them more comprehensible (and fun: it was very dull reading), e.g. a love story called "Priscilla's dillema", but alas, never got around to that.