Data purists would rap my knuckles for asking this question and reply, "Never". On the other hand, "data sophists" who're accustomed to lying with Big Data in even more crude ways would wonder, “Duh, ...

Causation and correlation may sound alike but are very different. The former means the root of subsequent events, while the latter refers to an actual or apparent relationship between trends in which ...

There are a lot of SEO studies out there, but not all of them are made equal. Here's how to decide if X is really affected by Y, or merely a coincidence. Every so often the SEO community will erupt ...

One of the first things taught in introductory statistics textbooks is that correlation is not causation. It is also one of the first things forgotten. – T. Sowell Correlations are often mistaken for ...

Here's another example of the difference between statistical correlation and causation. Maybe it's best to agree on a plausible path of causation before looking for the correlation. That way it avoids ...

With the explosion of interest in Big Data everyone in every department is looking for actionable intelligence. That’s great but there’s a downside: Trying to explain to, say, your VP of sales that ...

Paul Kaplan: Quoting Benjamin Disraeli, Mark Twain famously quipped, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." In the field of investments, in which we rely heavily on ...

RAILWAY AGE JANUARY 2023 ISSUE: Welcome to “Timeout for Tech with Gary T. Fry, Ph.D., P.E.” Each month, we examine a technology topic that professionals in the railway industry have asked to learn ...

A comment posted by a reader on a recent post reprimanded me for suggesting that marijuana caused relationships to go bad. In this instance the reader was mistaken, as I had specifically used the word ...

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts. If trying to assess the risks and benefits of various foods, behavior ...

A comment posted by a reader on a recent post reprimanded me for suggesting that marijuana caused relationships to go bad. In this instance the reader was mistaken, as I had specifically used the word ...