Why Google Correlate is The Greatest Thing Ever

Also known as "Correlation is not Causation. Really. Trust me on this"

Hat tip to Kid Dynamite...

Correlation Is Not Causation – In Easy To Understand Form

Kudos to Bryce Elder at the FT for banging out some tremendous Google Correlate charts which illustrate more clearly than any words possibly can the old adage “Correlation is Not Causation.”  Elder grabs some charts showing the correlation between Google search data on:

1) S&P 500 vs “Asian Diner”

2) “Gold” and “hot girl”

3) VIX and “Lil’ Kim Downloads”

4) Euro-Dollar and “It Will be Alright”

Google Correlate is another cool function from Google that I’m guessing most people don’t know about.  The FT’s Bryce Elder describes it succinctly as “It is, in short, an automatic logical fallacy generator.” (more...)