This is an academic thread. The first principle in any academic search is to differrentiate between association and causation.

An assocation means to things look related. It may be causing each other, it may be not.

For example, look at the first image. At one glance, you may think that if you eat more margarine, you are more likely to get a divorce. however, this association sounds ridicolous (obviously) and the causation is doubtful.

unfortunately, such association occur in our everyday lives. we see event A, we see event B, we conclude that they are related. but they are not. to determine if an association is causation, we look at the 11 rule of bradford-hill criteria. see image 2.