This certainly is a true and tested adage, but I've got a feeling that the correlation-backlash has gone too far in the other direction. Don't just repeat it without getting it. If substantiated through proposal of a suitable mechanism, correlation is solid corroboration of a causality-claim.
More precisely, correlation most definitely never implies absence of causation.
No, but robust correlation implies causation somewhere nearby. It could be A->B, or B->A, or C->A and C->B, or something more complicated. This is where common sense and ability to propose mechanisms comes in and while I can easily see how less education could make someone less employable, I don't see how someone's current unemployment can change someone's past education attainment, for instance.
I was attempting to make what I thought was a rather obvious caution (which is why I kept my post so terse), but since my above comment has been downvoted to hell[1] I guess I should explain. I was not speculating that unemployment changes education background. My common sense agrees with yours in this regard. What I was trying to remind everyone is that this data doesn't distinguish between "education makes you more employable" and "bright/hardworking/advantaged/<insert hidden variable here> people do better in school and at the work."
[1] Why is the -4 display cap still in effect now that we can't see other people's scores?
Why is the -4 display cap still in effect now that we can't see other people's scores?
I think because the current experiment of not showing comment karma scores (other than your own comment karma scores) is done with minimal changes to the existing code base. See
