Heh.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
As far as silly Internet memes go, given my interest in World War II history, I have a weakness for Downfall parodies, which have grown up on YouTube like kudzu over the last couple of years. I also thought it was only a matter of time before someone did something like this and wondered why it hadn…
heh.
You can still see EXPELLED in theaters if you dont mind paying $2,400.
heh.
heheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh.
Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH) had a great speech on the House floor yesterday:
"You go to war with the President you have, not the president you wish you had."
Heh heh.
Someone is putting out feelers to see about building yet another creation museum in Peoria, IL. They're looking for information about how much support they'd get, so they've made a creationist survey, asking if people would be willing to contribute to it. I don't quite get the point of a survey for…
This "correlation does not imply causation" thing has got out of hand. At least in the form it's normally quoted. Because correlation does imply causation; just not the source of causation.
You forgot to copy the alt-text. Every xkcd comic has an alt-text that adds to the joke.
I didn't forget. It's bad manners to copy everything of someone else's work. There has to be a reason for people to go visit.
John Conway @ 1
The number of fridges sold correlates with the number of washing machines sold. This does not show that one causes the other.
No it doesn't. I can pick two time series, say temperature in Sydney, and the price of an unrelated stock (e.g. the Southern Norwegian Peanut Pickling Company) that are strongly correlated, but there need not be any causation. I just need to make enough comparisons until I find one.
KATZ - there is probably a causative element there: general wealth causes both fridge and washing machine sales to increase. That's John Conway's point, which is correct, but not sufficient to make the general claim he's making.
While it's true that correlation doesn't imply causation, one of my gripes is that people throw around "correlation doesn't imply causation" to undermine reaching the obvious conclusion. For example, smoking companies couldn't deny the fact that smokers got lung cancer at a higher rate than the general population. So, they threw-out the "correlation doesn't imply causation" meme to drag their feet, avoid all responsibility, and undermine the belief that smoking causes cancer. That's my gripe with people throwing out the "correlation doesn't imply causation" as a knee-jerk reaction - people often use it to drag their feet and avoid admitting the obvious.