Tolerance

Last week I participated in an interfaith dialogue between members of the Jewish, Christian and Islam faiths.

The event was both insightful and fascinating; being amongst people from such a culturally diverse spectrum seeking to find common ground during a time where religion is so often used as an excuse for separation.

In our groups we were asked to suggest ideas for promoting dialogue and fostering tolerance. Each group shared their views, a conglomeration of the group’s tri-affiliated co-religionists.

One of the groups claimed that as a prerequisite for promoting tolerance was the removal of the ‘Abbot’ government.

How ironic that the promotion of tolerance necessitates an intolerance towards those positions unaligned with my own.

I think there’s a term for that...intolerant.

Correlation is not causation!

Anyone who has taken an intro to psych or a statistics class has heard the old adage, "correlation does not imply causation." Just because two trends seem to fluctuate in tandem, this rule posits, that doesn’t prove that they are meaningfully related to one another.

Correlation is a statistical measure that describes the size and direction of a relationship between two or more variables. 

Causation indicates that one event is the result of the occurrence of the other event; i.e. there is a causal relationship between the two events. 

Causality is the area of statistics that is commonly misunderstood and misused by people in the mistaken belief that because the data shows a correlation that there is necessarily an underlying causal relationship.

A good example is that the rate of drowning on Sydney’s beaches is positively correlated to the sale of ice cream.

An incorrect conclusion is that “the consumption of ice cream leads to drowning”. More likely the reason would be that both drowning and ice cream sales are positively affected by hot weather; more people are at the beach and more ice creams are sold- correlation does not imply causation!.

A few examples from recent articles and headlines:

“Spiritual people are more likely to be mentally ill” -The Daily Mail 

 “...children whose parents smoked were more likely to exhibit delinquent behaviour”- The Guardian

“People who have large weddings are less likely to get divorced”- Psychology Today

“Men and women who eat more of the sweets are also likely to be depressed”-LA times

“Coffee may prevent depression, scientists say”-BBC

Don’t be duped by Facebook trends- correlation does not imply causation

Addicts and Codependents

The world of addictions is a scary one to witness. The addict is a con-artist extraordinaire. He has to be as his survival depends on it. It isn't that he wants to lie, it's that he cannot not lie. The truth is too scary and too painful. Admitting his addiction is half the problem.

But every story of addiction has another story of co-dependency- " a helping relationship where one person supports or enables another person's addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement."

The codependent prolongs the addictive cycle; he makes excuses for the addict, bails out the addict and defends the addict. The codependent ensures that the addict need never take responsibility for his actions.
They show kindness when harshness is needed, they open their arms when their arms needed to be folded. 
Their reluctance to be perceived as the 'bad guy' dupes them into becoming the bad guy.
Addicts are not the only ones who need to be in therapy...they are just the obvious ones.