Abdul was listening to a radio talk show and hear the announcer talk about "a high correlation between crime and poverty." the announcer then proceeded to say since there was a high correlation, poverty causes crime. abdul is taking psychology, and is skeptical of what he just heard. he knows that:

I believe the answer is: correlation does not indicate cause-and-effect relationships

Another example of this false perception is the study about the relation between soy and breast cancer.

A popular study conducted in united states concluded that there is a higher correlation between citizens with high soy consumption with breast cancer, and people falsely attribute it to a cause and effect relationship.

This conclusion is disproved after being pointed out that people in East Asia consume much more soy products but have lower rate of cancer.