Question

select the word that means combine two or more ideas into one. when two events occur together, they are said to be correlated. however, people are often tempted to believe incorrectly that one of the correlated events causes the other. for example, people with blond hair often have blue eyes. if you conflate correlation and causation, you may think that because they happen together, blond hair causes blue eyes. however, geneticists believe that the genes for blond hair and blue eyes are simply likely to be found in the same individuals—neither is the cause of the other.

Explanation:

The text asks for a word that means combining two or more ideas into one. The word "conflate" in the passage is used to show incorrectly combining the ideas of correlation and causation. So the word that fits the description of combining ideas is "conflate".

Answer:

conflate