Spurious Correlations
Military intelligence analyst and Harvard Law student Tyler Vigen illustrates the golden rule that “correlation does not equal causation” through hilarious graphs inspired by his popular website.
This book is a handy reminder to fundraisers to be wary of claiming achievements that do not in fact stack up.
Whether that is the results of a new or different approach to a fundraising campaign or even the impact of a charity, it is essential to understand that “correlation does not equal causation”.
Is there a correlation between Nic Cage films and swimming pool accidents? What about beef consumption and people getting struck by lightning? Absolutely not. But that hasn’t stopped millions of people from going to tylervigen.com and asking, “Wait, what?”
Vigen has designed software that scours enormous data sets to find unlikely statistical correlations. He began pulling the funniest ones for his website and has since gained millions of views, hundreds of thousands of likes, and extensive media coverage.
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