[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for the explanation! It was very helpful indeed and easy to read!

All this is statistical in nature and depends on sample size, etc. Anyway, things with high correlation strength are often causally related.

I presume then that if a high correction strength is detected, the next step is to look for a causal relationship - but finding the one does not necessarily mean the other will also be found.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Correct. That's the way things are supposed to proceed. As a rule of thumb, high correlation usually means that there is a causation, but the obvious one may not be correct (storks and babies.)

[js1138]

I presume then that if a high correction strength is detected, the next step is to look for a causal relationship - but finding the one does not necessarily mean the other will also be found.

Generally we look for correlations in areas where we already suspect a causal relationship. Anyone who has inhaled smoke would suspect it of causing damage. The trick is to find the kind of smoke that has a good correlation to damage. It does not take a rocket scientist to suspect that quantity and frequency of inhaled smoke would correlate with the amount of damage.