correlation and causality examples
My favorite example on correlation !-> causation is data from Yule & Kendall on the relationship between number of licenses for radios and the number of people classified as 'mental defectives' in England and Wales from 1924-37 Of course, both were increasing over time, the latter due to increase in diagnosis using this term, the former due to increased availability, accounting for the very high correlation. I've attached the data as a SAS file.
Subject: [R] correlation and causality examples From: Jean lobry <lobry at biomserv.univ-lyon1.fr> Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 15:49:29 +0100 To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch Dear All, I'am looking for examples showing that correlation does not imply causality, the targeted audience consists of undergraduate students (their first year at the university but in the BioMathStat track). All practicals are under R.
Michael Friendly Email: friendly at yorku.ca Professor, Psychology Dept. York University Voice: 416 736-5115 x66249 Fax: 416 736-5814 4700 Keele Street http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/friendly.html Toronto, ONT M3J 1P3 CANADA