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This is tortured reasoning. Or worse, deliberately misleading phrasing on your part.

Let's say that some unspecified statistical technique found two distinct clusters from some given raw data. These two clusters almost exactly line up with another set of clusters, and the reason for that another set of clustering is Z.

Implying that the first set isn't because of Z but it's probably all a confounder is... technically true, but extremely misleading for just about any and all sensemaking that we do.

If we applied this level of epistemic caution to anything at all, we would never pull conclusions about anything ever.

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I'll say the quite part out loud. Blank slatists and their political ilk are not this careful about statistical inferences when it aligns with their preconceptions.




*quiet




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