yes I'm a scientist
I didn't catch what you said was correlated but not caused, so I'll discuss correlation and causation in general terms - since pop science sux on this point - without knowing whether I'm agreeing or disagreeing with you
. "Correlation is not causation" is a pop science motif that gets overused to be honest and flattens nuance. Correlation always implies something. If A is correlated with B it provides a prima facie case for causation and one of the following 5 options is true (arrows imply causation)
1) A-> B
2) B-> A
3) C-> B+A
4) A-> B-> A
5) A-> C-> B
The first is the most common, so all correlation tends to provide a prima facie case which motivates further investigation. Take for example that flu infections rise when the whether gets cold. In the options above
1) cold weather causes more flu infections
2) flus are causing the weather to get colder
3) something else is causing the temperature to drop and increase flus
4) cold weather causes flus which in turn makes the weather colder
5) cold weather causes some other phenomena which cause flu
only 1 and 5 are plausible, so in this case, and most cases, correlation really does imply causation. In other cases scientists working in the field are usually under the burden of proof to argue for options 2,3 or 4 and give evidence. Anyway hopefully that is a lighthearted digression as we return to the heavier topic.
For your second point, I disagree. Antisemitic hate crimes were elevated before Oct 7 then rose a few hundred percent in every western country, including Australia. This rise in hate crimes occurred before Israels response and did not further rise after Israels response, but has stayed at an alarming level.
2nd, even if Israel's response was the casus belli of rising antisemitism, implying (and forgive me if you weren't) that this is a mitigating circumstance seems to argue for a completely disfunctional and ungovernable society. Consider that the shooters were not Palestinian, the only thing in common with Palestinians is that Palestine is majority Muslim and the victims shared the same religion as the majority religion in Israel. If this the criteria that provides a mitigating circumstance for hate crimes, how many people fall into that criteria?
In this thread I've seen Nigeria and Ukraine mentioned, usually in the context of hypocrisy. I personally think its fairly normal for people to focus on single causes while ignoring others, no human can hold the entirety of the worlds suffering in their focus, without going mad.
However, I do think they are good examples for my point. If people who had the same religion as the Nigerian victims shot people who had the same ethnicity/religion as the perpetrators would that be mitigating? I know some russian colleagues with pretty dodgy opinions about the Ukraine war. Would it be mitigating if an Ethiopian Orthodox shot up some Russians in Australia having a BBQ. There are nearly 60 armed conflicts happening right now quite a few having allegations of genocide and attrocities. If the principle is that these are mitigating circumstances not just for refugess from the conflict to attack civilians from another country (I'd already disagree with that principle) but for anyone with something in common with country A having mitigating circumstances for attacking people who have something in common with country B. How is that supposed to work unless Jews are the single exception?
