Correlation does NOT mean causation!! Shown graphically by this site...

ILoveTTATT

http://www.tylervigen.com/

These are some FUNNY correlations... which of course are not causations!!

Enjoy!!

LisaRose

It's one of my pet peeves. I have read about studies that forget this, it's amazing to me. Here's an old joke about statistics, showing how meaningless they can be. The dangers of bread

1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.

2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming
households score below average on standardized tests.

3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked
in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50
years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high;
many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as
typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.

4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed
within 24 hours of eating bread.

5. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived
of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after
as little as two days.

6. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to
"harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and
even cold cuts.

7. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human
body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating
bread could lead to your body being taken over by this
absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey
bread-pudding person.

8. Newborn babies can choke on bread.

9. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees
Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less
than one minute.

10. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to
distinguish between significant scientific fact and
meaningless statistical babbling.

MeanMrMustard

This is my favorite. If you have ever done any web development, then this represents 100% causation :

MMM

LogCon

I don't get any of these

except

Per capita consumption of sour cream (US) correlates with Motorcycle riders killed in noncollision transport accident.

That one I can understand.

Maat13

A correlation has physical meaning...while statistics is simply a comparison of numbers or sets of numbers. This is an Apples and Orange comparison.

MissFit

Bttt

Island Man

Some of these spurious correlations may actually be related in some very indirect way. Take for example the graph showing Internet Explorer market share with the US murder rate. If it could be figured out why the IE market share droped in the specific pattern that it did then that could perhaps give insight that a similar-behaving kind of factor is also responsible for the drop in murder rate.