Correlation & Causation: The Couple That Wasn't

"But to measure cause and effect, you must ensure that simple correlation, however tempting it may be, is not mistaken for a cause. In the 1990s, the stork population in Germany increased and the German at-home birth rates rose as well. Shall we credit storks for airlifting the babies?" One of the basic tenets of statistics is: correlation is not causation. Correlation between variables shows a pattern in the data and that these variables tend to'move together'.