How fun — a site for correlations of mass confusion. Here are some I generated… a genre of putative pointillism. (And remember kids, spurious correlations do not imply causation. =)

In this first one, you see how German passenger cars sold in the U.S. correlates strongly (0.94) with the automotive suicide rate.

And domestic car production? Well, it correlates inversely (-0.88) with the number of lawyers in D.C. http://www.tylervigen.com/view_correlation.php?id=1487 and correlates with a lower suicide rate, of course (-0.95), http://www.tylervigen.com/view_correlation.php?id=2874

And it applies to space too. U.S. commercial space launches correlate, most worrisomely, with deaths caused by changes in air pressure (0.82) http://www.tylervigen.com/view_correlation.php?id=200

But, lest we think this in indirectly actionable at best for mere mortals, keep in mind that in the U.S. at least, the total number of Political Action Committees (PACs) correlates strongly (0.92) with the number of people who die falling out of their wheelchair. http://www.tylervigen.com/view_correlation.php?id=2719

And, to remind us of the fallacy of post-hoc analysis, the closest correlation I found (0.99) was between spending on science and space and technology (my favorite things) and suicides by oxygen depravation. http://www.tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=1597

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *