Spurious Correlations

A funny list of strangely correlated things

In #articles

I saw this list of spurious correlations, including "US spending on science, space, and technology" correlates with "Suicides by hanging, strangulation and suffocation", "Number people who drowned by falling into a swimming-pool" correlates with "Number of films Nicolas Cage appeared in" and "Per capita consumption of cheese (US)" correlates with "Number of people who died by becoming tangled in their bedsheets". These aren't spurious correlations, actually, they are spurious causations. The correlation is real, it's just that there isn't a cause-and-effect relationship (in either direction) - there is some third variable (or variables) influencing both.

I love showing these sorts of examples to student to talk about correlations and causation.

Most of these are just correlated by trends - up or down for the entire timeframe, where it is clear what the third variable is - population growth, for example. A couple of them, like "Worldwide non-commercial space launches correlates with Sociology doctorates awarded (US)" and "Age of Miss America correlates with Murders by steam, hot vapours and hot objects" have interesting oscillations that are not obvious. There is almost certainly a third variable there...otherwise there is some space-tech training in sociology that I am unaware of.