Irish lad pulls the wool over the media

http://news.aol.com/article/wikipedia-quote-hoax/475157?icid=webmail|wbml-aol|dl1|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fwikipedia-quote-hoax%2F475157

Now I have to admit that I did not check out the reliability of this story on
Snopes or any other source but it sounds right. The challenge is that traditional newspapers are dying and therefore cutting costs and trying to figure out new ways to survive (but most will not).

The biggest problem that I have with our media other than not checking their facts enough is they flat do not understand the difference between correlation and causal relationship. If event A happens frequently when event B occurs then we have a correlation. But we don't know if A causes B or B causes A or neither of these causes the other without further analysis.

An example that really annoys me is the statistic that people with college degrees earn about $1 million more over their lifetimes than people without college degrees. The media and our politicians then assume that all college creates better jobs and a wealthier society. But a causal relationship has not been proven - only a correlation.

But do graduates get their college degrees because they have higher IQs, or because they have spent less time in jail, or because on average they have lower teen pregnancy rates or because they come from wealthier families? Or do all the factors that lead to one going to college contribute to higher career earnings more than the college experience itself. The income derived from college study in Sociolgy is really questionable from my angle.