Despite the chant that correlation is not causation, some researchers believe the design of scatter plots nudges us to the wrong conclusions. Can a change in their design lessen that risk? Analyzing ...

Here’s the cure to being duped again. It’s a site called Spurious Correlations by Tyler Vigen–or more accurately, Tyler Vigen’s software. He created code to spot correlations in public data sets and ...

Here for spreading far and wide is a graphical reminder of the important distinction between correlation and causation. Redditor Jasonp55 writes that he was practicing Graph Pad when he produced the ...

Correctly distinguishing between correlation and causation is critical because it influences how treatments for illnesses are devised and tested. Also, in the context of the law, it ensures that as ...

Data purists would rap my knuckles for asking this question and reply, "Never". On the other hand, "data sophists" who're accustomed to lying with Big Data in even more crude ways would wonder, “Duh, ...

Most of us have heard the phrase "correlation does not equal causation." But understanding how scientists move beyond identifying correlations to establish causation remains a mystery to many. Finding ...

Paul Kaplan: Quoting Benjamin Disraeli, Mark Twain famously quipped, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." In the field of investments, in which we rely heavily on ...

[This post incorporates parts of posts from posts on my own blog and lecture notes I circulate to my graduate students. I figured it was worth revising and posting here as a) basically none of you are ...

There are a lot of SEO studies out there, but not all of them are made equal. Here's how to decide if X is really affected by Y, or merely a coincidence. Every so often the SEO community will erupt ...