Can you explain to me what 'obligatory disclaimer' means in probability. Is it like a lack of information or what? The context is the following: Second, we found that the marginal distribution of Y is Bern(0.08), whereas the conditional distribution of Y given X = 1 is Bern(0.2) and the conditional distribution of Y given X = 0 is Bern(0.04). Since conditioning on the value of X alters the distribution of Y , X and Y are not independent: learning whether or not the sampled individual is a current smoker gives us information about the probability that he will develop lung cancer. This example comes with an obligatory disclaimer. Although we have found that X and Y are dependent, we cannot make conclusions about whether smoking causes lung cancer based on this association alone. (Joseph K.

malaana5k

malaana5k

Answered question

2022-09-26

Meaning of 'obligatory disclaimer'
Can you explain to me what 'obligatory disclaimer' means in probability. Is it like a lack of information or what?
The context is the following:
Second, we found that the marginal distribution of Y is Bern(0.08), whereas the conditional distribution of Y given X = 1 is Bern(0.2) and the conditional distribution of Y given X = 0 is Bern(0.04). Since conditioning on the value of X alters the distribution of Y , X and Y are not independent: learning whether or not the sampled individual is a current smoker gives us information about the probability that he will develop lung cancer. This example comes with an obligatory disclaimer. Although we have found that X and Y are dependent, we cannot make conclusions about whether smoking causes lung cancer based on this association alone. (Joseph K. Blitzstein, Jessica Hwang--Introduction to Probability)

Answer & Explanation

doraemonjrlf

doraemonjrlf

Beginner2022-09-27Added 8 answers

It has nothing to do with probability theory and vocabulary in itself, but rather the two words obligatory and disclaimer in regular English.
Basically, they're saying that any time you point out a correlation, you should warn that this does not mean causation.

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