Heinrich R Liesefeld, James T Townsend, Markus Janczyk
In our commentary, we discuss that even under controlled experiments it is typically not possible to conclusively identify causal relationships beyond a superficial level.
The target article "Illusions of Understanding in the Sciences" by Shiffrin et al. (Computational Brain & Behavior, 2026) demonstrates how scientists tend to misinterpret correlations by declaring one of the variables as the cause of the other. In our commentary, we discuss that even under controlled experiments it is typically not possible to conclusively identify causal relationships beyond a superficial level.