"…our experiment found that people who trim the fat from their steaks were more likely to be atheists than those who ate the fat that god had provided for them. it’s possible that there’s a real correlation between cutting the fat from meat and being an atheist, vieland said, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a causal one." why can they not conclude that this is a causal relationship?

Because the simple correlation of the two variables does not really mean causation from one to the other.

Explanation:

A causal relationship between two different variables is only considered when it can be proved that one of the variables is the cause and the second one is the effect of the first one. That is to say, that an event only occurs because the other variable causes it.

First event: CAUSE

Second event: EFFECT

delete this question pls it wont let me exit out