推断因果关系是偏好敏感的:我们需要一本关于谁以及为什么的书

The Bradford Hill criteria serve as guidelines for establishing causative links in epidemiological research. Beyond Strength, Consistency, Specificity, and Temporality, key criteria also include Biological Gradient, Plausibility, Coherence, Experiment, and Analogy. These principles assist scientists in assessing the likelihood of causation in complex biological contexts. Below is a summary of these concepts:

While variables are sometimes correlated because one does cause the other, it could also be that some other factor, a confounding variable, is actually causing the systematic movement in our variables of interest. For instance, as sales in ice cream increase, so does the overall rate of crime. Is it possible that indulging in your favorite flavor of ice cream could send you on a crime spree? Or, after committing crime do you think you might decide to treat yourself to a cone?

Causality or causation is a fundamental concept in epidemiology, vital for understanding the relationships between various factors and health outcomes. Despite its importance, there's no single, universally accepted definition of causality within the discipline. Drawing from a systematic review, causality in epidemiology encompasses several definitions, including production, necessary and sufficient, sufficient-component, counterfactual, and probabilistic models. Each has its strengths and...

The Bradford Hill criteria are a group of principles that provide a framework to determine a causal relationship between a specific factor and a disease. There are nine criteria that are pivotal in assessing causality in epidemiological studies. Here's a closer look at Strength, Consistency, Specificity, and Temporality criteria with definitions and examples:

Inductive reasoning is a form of logical thinking that uses related observations to arrive at a general conclusion. It is uncertain and operates in degrees to which the conclusions are credible. As such, inductive arguments can be weak or strong, rather than valid or invalid, and conclusions can be used to formulate testable, falsifiable hypotheses.
Inductive reasoning is common in descriptive science. A life scientist makes observations and records them. This data can be qualitative or...

According to some social psychologists, people tend to overemphasize internal factors as explanations—or attributions—for the behavior of other people. They tend to assume that the behavior of another person is a trait of that person, and to underestimate the power of the situation on the behavior of others. They tend to fail to recognize when the behavior of another is due to situational variables, and thus to the person’s state. This erroneous assumption is...