If buying cars guaranteed that you would live longer, would you do it?
Of course, but then you have made the correlation imply causation, and it doesn’t. If number of cars owned and life expectancy was perfectly correlated, with no counter examples, that would be strong evidence for causation in either one direction or the other, but that isn’t the case, and also wasn’t the point of the example.
Of course, but then you have made the correlation imply causation, and it doesn’t. If number of cars owned and life expectancy was perfectly correlated, with no counter examples, that would be strong evidence for causation in either one direction or the other, but that isn’t the case, and also wasn’t the point of the example.