Why Ice Cream Is Linked to Shark Attacks - Correlation/Causation - The Dr. Data Show

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Why are soda and ice cream each linked to violence? In this episode of The Dr. Data Show, Eric Siegel delivers the final word on what people mean by "correlation does not imply causation."
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Soda and ice cream are linked to violence. What the what? And people have concluded from data that smoking, chocolate, and curly fries are good for you. Why the when?
I'll explain -- but also go much further and show you… wait for it… that figuring out why such things are true doesn't even matter at all for driving decisions with data. Who the how? It's time for the Dr. Data "correlation does not imply causation" infotainment clarification proclamation moment of zen clarity. Let's do this!
According to the data, ice cream consumption is linked to shark attacks. How the why? Well, maybe eating ice cream makes you taste better? So, you consume the ice cream and the shark consumes you. But the more accepted sharksplanation is that it's seasonal. It just so happens that, when it's warmer, more people are eating ice cream and also more people are swimming in the ocean.
That is to say that there's no causal relationship, in either direction -- neither of these things causes the other, even indirectly. Instead, they're both caused by a third factor. So the good news is that we've found a link, a connection, a correlation between these two factors in the data -- and that's valuable. The two are indeed predictive of one another. If we see ice cream sales increase, we can rightly ascertain a higher probability of shark attacks, and vice versa. But the bad news is that, when we discover such a correlation, oftentimes their common cause, some third factor, is just not in our data set at all. That data wasn’t included, 'cause it was overlooked or perhaps it would be difficult or costly to collect. So we're stuck with a predictive correlation, but no definitive causal explanation as to why it is so.
Now, soda also appears to be dangerous. In 2011, an economics professor and a health policy researcher went public with this as their research result. Among adolescents, they found, quote, "a strong association between soft drinks and violence..." And they also wrote, quote, "... drinking more than five cans of non-diet soft drinks per week was associated with a 9-15 percentage point increase in the probability of engaging in violent actions... There may be a direct cause-and-effect relationship, perhaps due to the sugar or caffeine content of soft drinks." Unquote.
Well, after that, a cacophony of media coverage erupted, with headlines like, “Soda Totally Turns Teens Into Killers.” Then skeptics began to push back. Now, they didn't question the correlation between soda consumption and violence. Rather, they questioned the causal relationship. Ya see, you can conclude that there's a link, a connection, an association, a correlation between two factors without necessarily understanding why it is so. The “why” -- the explanation -- always involves causation: some insight as to how things influence or affect one another.
The criticism here is that you shouldn't conclude soda causes violence. Rather, it may be that diet is linked to socio-economic status. Lower income teens consume more junk food, including sodas, and poverty itself is a risk factor for teen violence. Now if that story is true, the causal links shown here -- like, the exact way in which poverty leads to violence -- could be pretty complex and somewhat multi-staged, but the point is that this is a plausible alternative explanation that doesn’t have soda even indirectly causing violence, so it’s unwarranted to sound the alarm about the dangers of soda.
Let me put it another way. Even if it's true that violent people drink more soda, there's no reason to fully believe that drinking soda will make you more violent. That would be like assuming that eating more ice cream will cause more shark attacks. Ice cream and soda may be bad for you, but not in that way.
Anyway, now some great news: Some tempting vices are good for you, like chocolate, smoking, curly fries, and breakfast! ...is what people who presume causation say.
“More frequent chocolate intake is linked to a lower body mass index..."
For the complete transcript and more: www.TheDoctorDataShow.com

[@EricSiegelPredicts]

NEW BOOK: The AI Playbook by Eric Siegel. In his bestselling first book, Eric explained how machine learning works. Now, in The AI Playbook, he shows how to capitalize on it. A Next Big Idea Club Must Read. Info: www.bizML.com

[@bobbyrobbins3748]

This is a great video! My theory of knowledge class and I are studying this concept with respect to the human sciences. In fact, I want to go into the data sciences myself, so this was an interesting video and perspective!

[@dallassegno]

Actually, I started feeding sharks ice cream in the 60s now they have a taste for it. It's cost me millions but it was worth it

[@EricSiegelPredicts]

Thanks for watching The Dr. Data Show! To sign up for notifications of future episodes and for more info, see: www.TheDoctorDataShow.com.

[@stephenbennett9991]

So what do you think of "profiling?" Saggin and baggin doesn't cause anyone to hold illicit drugs on their person. . . but it does make it more likely.

[@EricSiegelPredicts]

That's kind of like asking what I think of racism. Let's see, I'm against it. Here's my op-ed that argues against allowing predictive models to consider protected classes as inputs: www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/When-machines-and-data-promote-blatant-13246572.php

[@stephenbennett9991]

@@EricSiegelPredicts Hang on a sec. . . I said "saggin and baggin." I didn't say anything about race. So if I say "saggin and baggin" why comment on race? Correlation is not causation. . . as you said, correlation just makes it more likely to be true.

[@EricSiegelPredicts]

Apologies, I misinterpreted you to mean that as a proxy for race (since “profiling” often specifically refers to racial profiling). However, if it does correlate with race, I would say there are problems with using it, even if not *intended* as a racial proxy.

[@stephenbennett9991]

@@EricSiegelPredicts I want to understand this. are you saying that "saggin and baggin" would correlate to a certain race? So if someone says "saggin and baggin" you would automatically think of a certain race that it correlates to?

[@stephenbennett9991]

​@@EricSiegelPredicts Think of it this way: we are against homelessness. If it happens to turn out that there is a correlation between homelessness and certain races, then does that make you racist to be against homelessness? Hope I didn't scare you away.

[@EricSiegelPredicts]

Want to learn more about machine learning from Dr. Data? His three-course series, "Machine Learning Leadership and Practice - End-to-End Mastery", covers everything he covered in The Dr. Data Show, plus a whole lot more. TO ACCESS: www.MachineLearning.courses

[@theinnerwaffle5887]

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