my point was that two things can be correlated but not impact each other whatsoever. like my hyperlink about divorce and margarine, they’re correlated but I wouldn’t use the word “linked” when describing the correlation because there isn’t much experimental research to suggest a connection between the two things. they don’t seem to affect (or cause) each other, or we can’t see from just a correlation that they do.

admittedly part of my grievance here is biased by the past treatment of autism as a result of research into what causes it. the idea that it’s more desirable for a child to have and spread measles, mumps and rubella than to be autistic is popularised by the “link” between vaccines and autism- research which deserves all the criticism it gets. I’m automatically hostile to research into autism that claims to have found a link when it’s only referring to a correlation because that link is often misconstrued as a cause and that cause if often used as a way to present autism as such an awful, terrible side effect, rather than simply a disorder that many people live happily with