Editing Causality (section)

==== Biology, medicine and epidemiology ====
[[File:comparison confounder mediator.svg|thumb|Whereas a mediator is a factor in the causal chain (top), a confounder is a spurious factor incorrectly suggesting causation (bottom).]]
[[Austin Bradford Hill]] built upon the work of [[David Hume|Hume]] and [[Karl Popper|Popper]] and suggested in his paper "The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?" that aspects of an association such as strength, consistency, specificity, and temporality be considered in attempting to distinguish causal from noncausal associations in the epidemiological situation. (See [[Bradford Hill criteria]].) He did not note however, that temporality is the only necessary criterion among those aspects. Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) are increasingly used in epidemiology to help enlighten causal thinking.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Chiolero|first=A|author2=Paradis, G |author3=Kaufman, JS |title=Assessing the possible direct effect of birth weight on childhood blood pressure: a sensitivity analysis|journal=American Journal of Epidemiology|date=1 January 2014|volume=179|issue=1|pages=4–11|pmid=24186972|doi=10.1093/aje/kwt228|doi-access=free}}</ref>