Correlation ≠ cause and effect

I was recently directed to a lovely example of how an observation of correlation can be misinterpreted with regard to cause and effect.*  It comes from Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich.  Here's the excerpt:At dusk on September 7, 1997, a cougar crept up on Ginny Hannum as she was working at the back of her cabin at the head of Boulder Canyon in Colorado.  The cougar crouched low among the rocks, facing her from about twenty feet, and it was ready to pounce.  Although Mrs. Hannum was unaware of the cougar's presence, she had become "somewhat annoyed" by a raven "putting on a fuss like crazy.  The noisy raven kept coming closer, having started its commotion twenty minutes earlier from about three hundred yards away.  Was this raven trying to say something?  She started to listen more closely.The cougar was ready to make its kill, but the raven was close, and it made pass over the woman, calling raucously, then flying up above her to some rocks, where she finally saw the crouching cougar.  As the cougar glared down with yellow eyes locked onto hers, Hannum quickly backed off and called her three-hundred-pound husband.  The surprise attack had been averted. She had been saved.  "That raven saved my life." The event was declared a miracle in the news.A miracle is any event the natural cause of which we do not understand.  Why did the raven call?  To the religious Hannums, it seemed a miracle that a raven would go ...
Source: Not running a hospital - Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs