

Not all causal relationships are created equal - barry-cotter
http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2009/05/not_all_causal_relationships_a.php

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sharpn
<http://xkcd.com/552/>

~~~
jibiki
So there's this guy, and he goes to prison. It's his first day there, and
everyone is lined up for roll call. Suddenly one of the prisoners shouts
"seventeen", and the others all laugh. Another prisoner shouts, "one hundred
and five" and, again, the prisoners laugh. The new guy asks his cell mate,
"hey, what's going on?" The cell mate replies, "oh, we've all been in here so
long that we know each others' jokes. So we just gave them all numbers, so
that we can just shout out the number instead of telling the whole joke." So
the new guy decides to try it. He yells "thirty two". Nobody laughs. Puzzled,
he tries again. "Nineteen". Again, no laughter. So he asks his cell-mate "I
don't get it, why didn't they laugh?"

"Oh, it's all in how you tell it."

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Semiapies
And of course the first comment on that post is trying to justify both
specious correlations. It explains so much.

