I'm so Bored that I made up statistics

A long time ago, senior year of high school to be exact, my Lovaaah (before she was my Lovaaah) and I  were getting to know each other on Facebook, and we found a website which listed items which had been correlated with cancer in various studies and articles.

I can't find the list we were looking at currently, but here is another list.

The list we had found included bubble bath, bacon, caffeine, having children, and not having children.

Yes, even if you've sworn off the first three, because you're a Jewish Mormon guy who thinks bubble baths are girly, you're still going to get cancer.

Not having kids with me will give you a worse form of cancer than you would get otherwise. 

What bugs me most is not that a lot of these "correlations" are minuscule or completely unfounded. It's not even that so many people still don't know the difference between correlation and causation. 

"Your Honor, just because women who marry me die at an average age that is a few decades younger than the general population, that does not mean that marrying me had anything to do with their deaths!"

No, what upsets me is how narrow-minded these people are in their assumptions about the direction of causation. 

Why does caffeine have to be what's causing cancer? It is equally plausible without any further proof that cancer is causing caffeine. 

Why do you think the energy drink companies are thriving? Because there's not a cure for cancer yet!

Also, why does causation have to move forward in time?

If bacon is causing cancer, for instance, who's to say it can't cause it retroactively?

If I avoid eating it for long enough, I'll wake up someday and my leg will be back. Of course, then I would have no memory of why I was avoiding all these cancer-causing things...

And why can't the causation be cyclical? 

Bubble bath retroactively causes childhood cancer, the stress of which drives you to take bubble baths...

Think I'm being ridiculous? Take a look at that list again, then come back and tell me that I'm the crazy one.

Bored Game time!

Answer: Coach Franklin! Move forward 1 space if you're stalking my Facebook and knew this. 

Question: What is a good use for cardboard?