13 May Correlation is not causation

Now this is strange: When margarine consumption in the US began a steady decline at the turn of the century, the divorce rate in Maine fell in lock-step:

Oh, but wait, correlation is not causation! The apparent connection between inferior butter substitutes and marriage breakups in the Pine Tree State is a mere co-incidence.

Harvard Law student Tyler Vigen is collecting, and graphing, statistical sets that appear to track one other closely, but have no real world connection. (Probably.)

“The charts on this site aren’t meant to imply causation, nor are they meant to create a distrust for research or even correlative data,” Vigen writes. “Rather, I hope this projects fosters interest in statistics and numerical research.”