What is non spurious association?

Answer 1

Nonspurious association means any covariation between a cause and an effect is true, rather than due to some other variable. A spurious association is one that is not true. Often, a causal inference cannot be made even though the other two conditions exist because both the cause and effect have some common cause; that is, both may be influenced by a third variable. For instance, there is a strong, positive correlation between ice cream purchases and murder rates- ice cream purchases increase, so do murder rates. When ice cream sales decline, murder rates also drop. Do people become murderers after eating ice cream? Should we outlaw the sale of ice cream? This would be silly because the concomitant variation observed between ice cream consumption and murder rates is spurious. A third variable is actually important here. People purchase more ice cream when the weather is hot. People are also more active and likely to commit a violent crime

when it is hot. The weather, being associated with both may actually cause both.