during the month of september, as the number of cars availableforsale decreases, the number of animals adopted from a shelter increases. Are either of these causation or association or neither.

Answer 1

The relationship you've described between the number of cars available for sale and the number of animals adopted from a shelter could be characterized as an association, but not necessarily causation.

Causation implies a direct cause-and-effect relationship between two variables, meaning that a change in one directly leads to a change in the other. In your example, there's no clear logical connection that suggests that the availability of cars influences the number of animal adoptions.

Association indicates that there is a correlation or a relationship between two variables, but it does not imply that one causes the other. In this case, there could be an external factor or coincidence driving both trends, such as seasonal changes, economic factors, or local events that could affect both car sales and shelter adoptions.

Therefore, we could conclude that the two phenomena are associated, but we cannot definitively say that one causes the other based on the information provided.