1) Those of you taking this too seriously need to "watch less TV",
2) When you find a correlation, as they did, "statistical analysis indicates that as the number of television sets increases, the birth rate decreases" (there is no mention of causal relationships there), it the question then becomes what are the causal relationships between the variables? Does A cause B, B cause A, or does a third factor C cause both A and B? The way to determine this is through experiments, just as the authors did. Although their methodology is questionable, the logic is sound behind the authors' approach. Also, I would argue that the correlation between birth rate and refrigerators is not coincidental, but probably have a common underlying cause (or causes).
1) Those of you taking this too seriously need to "watch less TV",
2) When you find a correlation, as they did, "statistical analysis indicates that as the number of television sets increases, the birth rate decreases" (there is no mention of causal relationships there), it the question then becomes what are the causal relationships between the variables? Does A cause B, B cause A, or does a third factor C cause both A and B?
The way to determine this is through experiments, just as the authors did. Although their methodology is questionable, the logic is sound behind the authors' approach.
Also, I would argue that the correlation between birth rate and refrigerators is not coincidental, but probably have a common underlying cause (or causes).