“Spurious Correlations” by Tyler Vigen

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Rating: 3/5 Stars

A hilarious book full of graphs that show that “correlation does not equal causation” by providing graphs filled with rather ridiculous correlations. The book has sections comparing food and drinks, science and technology, culture, personalities and others correlated with rather ridiculous things (most famously, Nicholas Cage film appearances against people drowning in swimming pools).

What the graphs show is that if you dig through enough time related data and compare them with other data, you will most likely discover that they are correlated, even though they should have nothing to do with each other. That is a danger that people should be aware of when shown graphs about apparently correlated data without the required causation. And the ridiculous examples of correlations in this book serve to highlight the danger.

Book read from 2021/04/08 to 2021/04/10