BIO 301D Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Smallpox, No Type, Cowpox
Document Summary
Wrong inferences in the past: malaria- means bad air- wrong inference. People thought it was caused by bad air in an area: tb- sanitaria. People thought it would help to get out of the country area, but true/best cure is antibiotics: aids. First guesses were drugs were the cause. Sometimes the correlation is due to causation: cowpox as a vaccine for small pox, rabies and mad dogs, smoking and lung cancer. Problem with correlation: why we cannot assume causation- is hidden variables. If x is correlated with y, there are three types of possible causal models. When a third variable is causal, changing x does not lead to a. Correlation: red cars have higher accident rates than other types of cars: variables: color, accident rate change in y. Red cars are kept longer before salvage; old cars have higher accident rates. People become more aggressive when driving red cars.
