You see a newspaper headline that claims that eating pizza is deadly. However, when you read the original scientific article cited in the news, you notice that investigators found a correlation between pizza consumption and death only over a 10-year period. Given what you know about correlation, how would you explain this relationship? a. It is more likely that being closer to death causes pizza consumption, because older people have eaten much more pizza over the course of their lifetime. b. Pizza consumption and death are related somehow, but a correlational study is not able to reveal any kind of causal relationship. c. Pizza consumption causes death, but the mechanisms for this cannot be understood from a correlational study. d. Pizza consumption causes death, but since the period of study is 10 years long, the correlation is very weak at best.

A causal relation between two events exists if the occurrence of the first causes an effect to the other. Here, the notion of cause and effect is the primary base to find a relation between events.

The statement that consumption of pizza leads to death is not a direct study which was found after studying the measure or degree of relationship between pizza and death. The investigators in this study found a correlation between pizza consumption and death only over a 10-year period. There may be circumstances like age, health, etc. which might have secured a relation between the two when studied for a long period of time. But that does not mean there is a causal relationship between the two.

A correlation between two events does not necessarily imply causation. It can mean a prediction without a real causation. A causal relation should have an immediate cause and effect result between two events or variables to have a causal relationship.