
The Strange Tectonic Coincidence of Mexico’s September Earthquakes - anthotny
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-strange-tectonic-coincidence-of-mexicos-september-earthquakes
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dmlorenzetti
The New Yorker could be that much better if they would occasionally include
technical graphics. In this case, how about a rendering of the plate mechanics
that are the subject of the article?

They are quite happy to print line drawings, comics, and full-page photos, so
it's not like they're scared of non-text content. Yet I've seen them devote
multiple paragraphs to describing a scatterplot that stunned some scientist
they were profiling.

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malkia
There is another one today - 6.2
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/23/mexico-new-
ear...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/23/mexico-new-earthquake-
oaxaca)

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dogruck
Summary: the epicenters of the two quakes were far apart. Correlation does not
equal causation.

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DavidSJ
To be pedantic, it's more that there isn't enough data to even say that
there's any correlation to begin with, and also that our understanding of the
origin of the two quakes refutes a shared cause.

A usage note: the phrase "correlation does not equal causation" is usually
reserved for the case where two variables A and B have a correlation in the
data that isn't just due to sampling accident, and hence _are_ causally
connected, but just not in the _naive_ sense of A causing B. It may be that B
causes A or that a third variable C causes both. But a true correlation in the
underlying process always has _some_ causal explanation.

~~~
nonbel
>"But a true correlation in the underlying process always has some causal
explanation."

In the vast majority of cases, A really is correlated with B to some extent.
People have done this with large social science datasets since at least the
1960s, they find everything is correlated with everything else.

So, whether a correlation merely exists is not interesting to begin with
(there are some exceptions in physics where theory really predicts zero
correlation). Yes, this means all the people currently plugging away at
checking for the mere existence of correlations are wasting their time and
(probably) taxpayer money.

~~~
DavidSJ
True. A more useful phrase might be something like, "magnitude (and direction)
of correlation may differ substantially from magnitude (and direction) of
causation".

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stillbourne
Illuminati confirmed! Obviously this is some sort of earthquake weapon made to
do... uh, what exactly? Cause, you know, earthquakes and aftershocks are not
naturally occurring things near tectonic plates... so we need to attribute it
to some dark god^H^H^H government conspiracy in order to explain this.

The article is actually a pretty good piece on skepticism. But the title is
just bait for stupid people to feed into their fears. If the attempt was to
make it clickbaity for people to click on it in order to debunk any notions
people might have they failed. Stupid people only read headlines not articles.

