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Identifying Misleading Statistics
What is Association?
If two things have a strong association it does not necessarily mean that one caused the other. Too often people are presented with data that have an association (meaning as one goes up the other tends goes up or vice versa) and immediately conclude that one causes the other. This example illustrates this quite well.
Obviously lemons lower highway fatality rates!
Not really.
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Correlation Does Not Mean Causation
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Real Example
Lemons lowering highway fatality rates is obviously far fetched but here is an example for which people just as easily could fall.
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Things to consider:
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Population increases over time
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More people = higher sales
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More people = more people being diagnosed with Autism
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More parents have their children checked for Autism over time
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