In the early 1800s, there was a smallpox outbreak in a remote part of Russia. The government sent in a large group of army doctors, but they were too late to stop the epidemic. Thirty years later, there was another smallpox scare. A local statistician
cautioned the government against a similar response, noting the increased mortality and high number of army doctors during the earlier epidemic. Was the statistician providing good advice?
The statistician confused correlation with causation. The doctors were not the cause of the smallpox deaths. If the statistician were correct, then we should get rid of hospitals, since so many people die there. One cannot conclude that the army doctors could have helped thirty years later; this would require additional data comparing smallpox deaths with and without medical assistance.
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