case study

Assignment This week: (more than300 words)

In the EMF case study from last week, electrical and magnetics fields (EMF) were thought to be correlated to Jacob's cancer.  Correlation is the degree to which two things are linked.  Correlations are talked about all of the time.  You hear in the news that (insert food name here) is linked to (insert cancer type here), and what they are talking about is usually correlation.  However, it does not mean that one thing causes the other. 

For instance, look at the following spurious correlations relationships.

Causation can be tricky to determine, so how much should we rely on just correlation to make a decision?  

Assignment:  Submit a paragraph to this dropbox (minimum 250 words) describing EITHER: 

1) Give an example of where in your opinion showing a correlation between two things is enough for you to believe or act on data...and a second example of where something would need to be shown to be causative before you would act on the data.

OR

2) How could confirmation bias or ad populum fallacy play a role in the EMF case study?  

 

Last week case study:

Mary and Pablo met while attending college and fell in love. Mary was a dual business and biology major, while Pablo studied graphic design. They both graduated during the fall of the same year and decided that it was time to get married. The newlyweds went out into the world hand in hand, looking for jobs, but couldn't seem to find anything within the region. A few of their friends who also graduated that year ended up getting jobs in North Carolina, so Mary and Pablo shifted their job search to that region. Soon they both found their dream jobs and planned to move into the area...

They ended up renting a small apartment but hated such cramped living. They also wanted to start a family and decided that a home would be much better, so they contacted a real estate agent and began to look for one. However, their search for housing was difficult because, like Mary and Pablo, many people had moved into the area for jobs over the last couple of years. This caused housing prices to rise sharply. As a young couple just starting out, they didn't have a large amount of money but could afford a small house.

Week after week, Mary and Pablo searched. Each house within their budget was not what they were looking for. They were small or needed a large amount of maintenance or were right next to very busy highways. Naturally, Mary and Pablo began to lose hope that they would find anything. The real estate agent had one more property to show them. The house seemed perfect. It was in good repair, had enough bedrooms, and even had a large yard out back. They both wondered why the price was so low, so they asked the agent. She pointed out the window to the large cellphone towers visible just past the back of the yard. They asked the real estate agent if the towers were harmful and she assured them that they weren't. After much discussion, the young couple decided to buy the house, as it was the best one that they could purchase on their budget.

Years passed and Pablo and Mary had one son named Jacob and two younger daughters, Delilah and Piper. They moved up in their jobs but were happy in that little house, so didn't see a need to move. The kids enjoyed exploring beyond the yard and playing under the towers. The children grew up and seemed healthy until the son was diagnosed with a rare type of liver cancer at age 15. The doctors were puzzled, as this type of cancer is rarely seen in children, and asked Pablo and Mary about their living environment. They couldn't think of what could have caused this cancer. As they were walking around the yard, looking for possible environmental factors, Mary looked up and saw the cellphone towers. She vaguely remembered reading a study or two linking exposure to electromagnetic fields and cancer.

What are the various explanations for why Jacob has cancer?

Activity:  

Start a thread and in one sentence provide an explanation for Jacob's cancer.  You cannot repeat someone else's explanation, so look to make sure yours is unique.