The website contains some spurious correlations that are quite funny (i.e., people who drowned after falling out
of a fishing boat and marriage rates in Kentucky (r = 0.95); anything involving Nicholas Cage).
Once you have looked at some of those examples, generate three spurious correlations using:
http://tylervigen.com/discover
Be sure to save the unique permalink for each of your three correlations and cite them properly in your paper.
Since the author isn’t the orginal source of the correlations, use the title of your correlection “pool deaths and
Nic Cage” as the title and can use a short version in text (Pool Deaths, n.d.) You do not have to include graphs
like those in the examples, but you can if you would like.
After you’ve picked your three correlations, answer the following questions for EACH of the three correlations:
Why is the relationship spurious? (That is to say, what are some possible rival causal factors what would
explain this spurious relationship)
How could these two variables be related? (Let’s pretend we’re the media and don’t know what correlations
doesn’t equal causation, what are some ways one of your variables could be related to the other? Ridiculous
theories are encouraged here)
Make sure you find real world examples that could possible support the second part of the prompt, at least
loosely speaking.
Sample Solution
