That is the human tendency toward connection of unrelated phenomena where none exists, toward creating patterns, even when none exists. Trying to bring order to chaos, is what separates us from being an animal. I suppose there are other things, but other primates don’t seem much concerned with the correlation versus causation debate. Bonobos will go down on each other, and chimpanzees will rip your face off, but neither group seems too concerned with voting districts or feminism.
The rate of divorce in Maine correlates almost perfectly with the rate of consumption of margarine in the rest of the country. And that’s not even the strangest example of almost perfect correlation. The number of letters in the winning word of the national spelling bee and people killed by venomous spiders. Almost perfectly the same. The point of talking about this? Many people find a cause and effect here. Don’t eat margarine or your cousin in Maine gets a divorce? Her marriage is doomed. Don’t spell long words, or you might kill someone with a spider bite.
These examples are ridiculous. Life is ridiculous. And the same impetus that suggests to a certain element that mass killings or 9/11 or Kennedy assassinations happened for a larger purpose, will also suggest this ridiculousness. It’s part of the human condition. These patterns that exist or don’t, that are recognized or not, that are true or false. To anyone that believes them, they are as real as God, or as oxygen in the air, or as subatomic truth or infrared light. The argument, of course, is just because it cannot be sensed, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. A negative proof shifts the burden, right or wrong, to the skeptic. And a lack of evidence becomes a virtue, not a deficit.
I think we all know better. I do.