A Serious Idea and a Few Quick Laughs: The Ridiculousness of Spurious Correlations
While on the path to happiness and self-improvement, it is easy to forget one most elemental rules of statistics:
Correlation does not equal causation.
Be careful taking what you read as fact, and balance trusting your inner judgement with “objective” truth and the opinions of others. That includes DailyHap.
Here are five hilarious correlations that demonstrate the ridiculousness of assuming that two things happening together mean that one causes the other, courtesy of http://www.tylervigen.com/.
Per capita consumption of cheese (US) correlates with Number of people who died by becoming tangled in their bedsheets
Correlation: 0.947091
Total revenue generated by arcades (US) correlates with Computer science doctorates awarded (US)
Correlation: 0.985065
Total number of Political Action Committees (US) correlates with People who died by falling out of their wheelchair
Correlation: 0.915876
Number people who drowned by falling into a swimming-pool correlates with Number of films Nicolas Cage appeared in
Correlation: 0.666004
US spending on science, space, and technology correlates with Suicides by hanging, strangulation and suffocation
Correlation: 0.992082 (conspiracy theory anyone?)
Moral of the article: if you want to save people from drowning, convince Nicholas Cage to stop making movies. 🙂