On 12 December 2010 13:29, Russel Winder <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, 2010-12-12 at 10:04 +0000, Kevin Wright wrote: > [ . . . ] > > > > People who didn't watch televisions would otherwise get up off the > > couch and find something less sedentary to do. The TV leads to > > inactivity, which leads to health problems - including heart attacks. > > > > > > I believe the statistics on this one... > > The statistics are true (sort of), but . . . I think I had better knock > this one on the head before it turns into a 10,000 entry mega thread: I > added the line to ensure the hidden humour level was high, but it seems > it might have the undesired effect of being misunderstood. > > Although you can show a high correlation between television ownership > and heart attacks, it is a statistical slight of hand, something akin to > the proof that 0 = 1. > > The reality is that time and population are hidden variables: over time > population increases, increased population leads to higher incidences of > heart attacks, and increased population leads to increased ownership of > televisions. > > You just had the misfortune to chose an example that's not only a plausible correlation, but is actually quite likely and has an easily explained mechanism. Time needn't be a factor, you could simply take a snapshot of any given country at some (past) point in time, then for each individual draw a graph of hours TV viewing vs whether or not they suffered a heart attack during their lifetime, I'm reasonably confident what the results would show. Now, if you had pointed out that rising ice cream sales cause a higher crime rate... -- Kevin Wright mail / gtalk / msn : [email protected] pulse / skype: kev.lee.wright twitter: @thecoda -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
