observational studies

[akimhaneul]

Are you required to have a control group when conducting observational studies? Is having control group only for when you are conducting experiments?

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[LIC2015]

Staring at a squirrel for an hour is an observational study as long as I write down what I see, but it's not science, so it won't require a control. Controls are needed when a hypothesis is being tested. Observations without an experimental context don't need controls because they don't provide any information beyond unbiased descriptions of a behavior or event.