Non-causal "nonsense" associations can arise when an exposure and an outcome of interest exhibit similar patterns of non-stationary dependence. For example, philosopher Kevin Hoover, responding to Elliott Sober, attributes the positive association between British bread prices and Venetian sea levels to temporal dependence. This talk explores whether or not variables like time in the Sober example can be thought of as confounders, bringing to bear pragmatic observations about statistical and causal methodology in addition to philosophical considerations.
