2014Dec17
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Cheese Consumption and Number of People Who Died Tangled in BedSheets, And Other Examples of Spurious Correlations

Looking for examples of spurious correlations to illustrate for your students the dangers of confusing correlation and causation?  Tyler Vigen offers over 40 examples of spurious correlations he derived from real data, including this one between cheese consumption and people who have died by getting tangled in their bed sheets (r = 0.95!) :


Or Tyler Vigen made it possible for you (or your students) to discover your own spurious correlations: click on "Discover a New Correlation."

Students may also find Vox's "Eight Ways to Be A More Savvy Science Reader" a helpful read on how to evaluate scientific evidence.

Read more:
http://tylervigen.com/
http://www.vox.com/cards/savvy-science-reader/scientific-evidence-intro-card#E7053536

TeachingwithData.org resources:
Dancing Statistics: Explaining the Statistical Concept of Correlation Through Dance (http://www.teachingwithdata.org/resource/3908)
Statistics Can Be Misleading (http://www.teachingwithdata.org/resource/3005)

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