Correlation doesn't equal causation.

I saw this excellent joke on the Crossfit NYC blog.

This is of course worth remembering when reading scientific studies. Just because x goes up if y goes up it doesn't mean that y causes x to go up. There are lots of examples especially in the world of diet.....

Comments

John Hope said…

Just because he definitely deserves the credit for a great comic... This is an xkcd strip - http://xkcd.com/552/

March 7, 2009 at 2:15 AM

Chris said…

Thanks John.

I've now linked the cartoon to its source

March 7, 2009 at 4:08 AM

Anonymous said…

Excellent!

March 7, 2009 at 6:05 AM

Anonymous said…

Glad you enjoyed it. I thought it very relevant to the crossfit "black box" approach of inputs and outputs--we might not know exactly how and why our specific training protocols are improving our fitness, but if we see that something is working, we go with it. We're not so concerned with what causes what--we care about the results.

March 9, 2009 at 10:43 AM

helium said…

When reading XKCD comics allways read the image's title tag as well. In this case: "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."

April 20, 2009 at 12:29 AM

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Conditioning Research

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