Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Not all causal relationships are created equal (scienceblogs.com)
9 points by barry-cotter on May 11, 2009 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments




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."


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




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: