Fri 7 Jul 2006
Did you know that bread is dangerous? I don't mean like "I'm on the Atkins diet I can't eat bread", I mean that bread can seriously kill you! Don't believe me? Check out this site: Bread is Dangerous! Of course, that link is satire. There IS a point to this however: Just because A and B are correlated doesn't mean that A necessarily causes B, or that B causes A. Both A and B may have a common cause, or it may simply be a coincidence. It's certainly possible that A causes B, but you need to explain why in order to have a persuasive argument.
(This post gave me a chance to do something I've never done before: Draw an angry face on a loaf of bread. Huzzah! I deem it a success.)
2 Responses to “Repeat after me: Correlation != Causation”
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July 9th, 2006 at 1:55 am
Don't forget carrots. Do you realize that everyone who ate carrots in the 18th century is dead now? The conspiracy of carrot farmers is trying hard to keep that fact a secret.
July 10th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
It wasn't the carrots Gary, it was the fact they were born in the 18th century. That was a really bad century for people dying.