Where have I ever stated that " correlation is the consequence of a causal relationship"? Nowhere. Learn to read...

I can read just fine for a German fella. Better than some of you natives to the english.

You used: "The study provides no evidence whatsoever that the correlation is the consequence of a causal relationship".

Which is your summation of the survey.

To use "correlation is the consequence of a causal relationship"
is flawed.

Now, if that is what you used to describe your casual dismissal of the survey, then so be it.
But to use that is flawed. You must place some belief in that, surely.

If you didn't, you would have used a different way of casually dismissing the survey.

Unfortunately, you used a flawed part in your dismissal.
So expect to be picked up on it.

Learn to read. (your own language).

And next time you want to provide feedback on a thread that you may not agree with, i suggest rethinking how to post an initial response to something you don't agree with.

Shows me a few things about your mentality.

Good luck with the english lessons.

I cba debating the flaws in the way you dismissed the survey.

Feuer Frei, your assessment of your skills in the English language is flawed.

To expand on the pirate charts and correlations:

http://www.tylervigen.com/

IMO (and as per any reasonable academic norm), trying to use this kind of data in a causative way is not in valid in any scientific kind of way.

Correlation coefficients per se are no values expressing a causal link, yes. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc.

But:

A causal link between number of carrier poermits and crime rate could be imagined. A link between temperature and number of pirates - well, needs much, much more imagination.

If correlations would be completely meaningless, nobody in science would calculate them. The art lies in understanding what kind of two variable get correlated to each other. And that is the problem with that famous temperature-pirate- "argument".

A correlation never is a sufficient argument in itself, but it can be a supportive one, or not (depending on the kind of variables compared, like said above).

If an intellectual analysis of the nature of two variables you compare implies the possebility or results in the conclusion they have a relation of causal nature of some sort and amount, THEN a correlation coefficient is expected to describe the intensity, the total effectiveness of a causal link indeed. THIS IS OFTEN OVERSEEN.

That is why the correlation in the permits-crime relation bears much more reasons and is more likely to hint at a causal link, then the temperature-piracy example. A high correlation alone is no argument for causality yes or no. The decision on causality assumed or not has to be made by content of the variables, their quality, what they mean and stand for. And only then you take a high correlation as an argument for a strong causal effect.

Confounding variables always have to be taken into account. The possibility for confounding variables being effective in the permits-crime-relation needs further examination. The existence of confounding variables in the temperature-piracy-relation can be taken almost for granted. And this again is an argument why the one can be assumed to have a higher probability for a causal link than the other.

And just to show what a bean counter I can be: a correlation different than zero ALWAYS is the description of a link between two variables. Its just that that link can not only be huge or small, or causal, but also one of chance (probability). Statistics then speak of stochastic or non-deterministic links.

Though it's still not a sufficient correlation by itself either. More info is needed. Was the number of permits the only thing that changed that could have led to the decline in crime? Maybe other measures were taken like more police patrols, CCTV, shrink of population size and so on. So while it's not necessarily wrong to say that more carried weapons mean less crime it also is no proof. We have to look at the whole picture to see what influences what.

Well if you look at his previous study based on his faked research people found things in the real figures which actually did match to the apparent changes in crime trends.
But it wasn't guns it was things like the illegal drugs market.

I seem to recall seeing some UK-based research that suggested that the clearest correlation for crime statistics in general (dating back over many years, rather than just cherry-picking recent data) was with youth unemployment. The point is though that with data that has varied by as much as the US violent crimes figures (see below for US homicides), it is highly unlikely that any single factor will explain variations. Putting the recent decline in the US violent crime rate down to 'concealed carry' is simply untenable, without an explanation for why the rate varied so much before the relevant legislation was introduced. The data is all over the place, and accordingly one has to assume that it wouldn't have stayed steady without the new legislation.

http://i958.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps7beeb644.png

(chart from here http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/...est_media.html Original data from US government figures)

Pictures or it didn't happen.

'Crime in the UK is currently at its lowest level in 30 years, having decreased dramatically from its peak in 1995. For example, 4.2 million violent crimes were counted in 1995 compared to 1.94 million in 2011/2012.'

As we have some of the most stringent gun controls of any nation, one must conclude that strict firearm control and reduced possession leads to a significant reduction in violent crime.

Or could there, as others have pointed out, be other factors involved? Maybe one should seriously doubt US research carried out by a known gun advocate funded by the NRA? A simplistic view of a very complex situation.