Learning from an experience that one has not learnt By Prof Dr Sohail Ansari

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock. ~ Ben Hecht but the work of newspaper is not helping people to determine but to tell the time

The Quran was revealed to Muhammad   in Arabic only.  So, any Quranic translation, either in English or any other language, is neither a Quran, nor a version of the Quran, but rather it is only a translation of the meaning of the Quran.  The Quran exists only in the Arabic in which it was revealed.

Repetition means no experience

Repeating experience means one had no experience. A person will keep repeating an experience as long as he does not learn from it.

·         Experience can be merely the repetition of same error often enough.

·         John G. Azzopardi, Problems in Breast Pathology, W.B. Saunders Company Ltd London . Philadelphia - Toronto, p. 113 (1979).

Correlation vs. Causation

By: Jeffrey Glen

When looking at the relationship between two things, correlation and causation are concepts that are often confused. Correlation refers to things that appear to have some form of consistent relationship, i.e. one item increases at the same time the other increases also. Based on observations many make the mistake of assuming that correlation can imply causation, that the increase in one item is increasing the other.

The distinction between the two is very important as when some see a correlated relationship they may make decisions based on what they are seeing. This may work out well for them if they're lucky and the correlation continues, but as the one event doesn't actually cause the other it can lead to poor decision making.

If there is an actual causation relationship then making a decision to do something based on seeing the other event take place is actually good decision making.

From an investment perspective this can be important. If an investor thinks they see a causation relationship, i.e. a firm's stock price goes up a few days after every positive employment report, and it is actually a correlation they could lose a lot of money. Say the next time they see a positive employment report they put all their portfolio into futures on this stock and this time the correlation doesn't occur they could lose a great deal of their investment. Understanding relationships, and putting the research into understanding what you think you see, is important.

What is the difference between positive correlation and inverse correlation?

By Investopedia | April 9, 2015 — 3:41 PM EDT

In the field of statistics, positive correlation describes the relationship between two variables which change together, while an inverse correlation describes the relationship between two variables which change in opposing directions. Inverse correlation is sometimes described as negative correlation, which describes the same type of relationship between variables.

Examples of positive correlations occur in most people's daily lives. The more hours an employee works, for instance, the larger that employee's paycheck will be at the end of the week. The more money is spent on advertising, the more customers buy from the company.

Inverse correlations describe two factors that seesaw relative to each other. Examples include a declining bank balance relative to increased spending habits and reduced gas mileage relative to increased average driving speed. One example of an inverse correlation in the world of investments is the relationship between stocks and bonds. As stock prices rise, the bond market tends to decline, just as the bond market does well when stocks are underperforming.

It is important to understand that correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Variables A and B might rise and fall together, or A might rise as B falls, but it is not always true that the rise of one factor directly influences the rise or fall of the other. Both may be caused by an underlying third factor, such as commodity prices, or the apparent relationship between the variables might be a coincidence.

The number of people connected to the Internet, for example, has been increasing since its inception, and the price of oil has generally trended upward over the same period. This is a positive correlation, but the two factors almost certainly have no meaningful relationship. That both the population of Internet users and the price of oil have increased is likely to be a coincidence.