this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] guy@piefed.social 70 points 4 days ago (2 children)

In my country there has been a huge increase in both ADHD and autism diagnoses the last decades. At the same time in those years the methods to discover both diagnoses have improved greatly.
But you know, correlation does not equal causation..

[–] manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml 20 points 4 days ago

Mandating helmets for the boys at the front is resulting in many more head injuries!

Yeah, this is like saying “skin cancer rates have increased dramatically in the past 30 years!” Well yeah, because now we have the technology to detect it earlier. That “things increased” stat ignores the complementary “but deaths decreased dramatically” stat that immediately follows it. Before, we didn’t know people had skin cancer until it was killing them. But now, with preventative screenings, public awareness campaigns, etc, people are more likely to get checked before it is a life threatening issue.

It’s the same thing. Detection models got better, so detection rates went up.