Statistical humor

Somebody once remarked, about the statistics class

If I had only one day to live, I would live it in my statistics class...

It would seem so much longer.

I am dealing with data analysis and statistics in my work-place, and after reading the first statement, you might have already judged how 'interesting' the field of statistics is. But I would defend myself saying that there is scope for humor even in this field. In this regard, I came across some wonderful humorous anecdotes in a book of Biostatistics. But before I get down to the joke itself, I need to bore you a little by explaining some statistical concepts.

You may be aware of the concept of correlation and regression. A particular coefficient called Coefficient of Correlation (r) is generally calculated to find out if two sets of data have a positive, negative or no correlation. A high value of r means high correlation.

While doing studies, many people have come across what are called spurious or nonsense correlations in which 2 sets of data seem to be highly correlated even though there is no link between them. In this respect, I came across 2 wonderful examples which were specially chosen to depict the humor that statistics can sometimes unexpectedly turn up.

The first wonderful example comes from a study done by a guy called Yule who observed a high correlation (r=0.951) between the proportion of marriages celebrated in Anglican churches (in England and Wales from 1866 to 1911) and the death rates in the same place. This had to happen, marriage had to be related to death, no? If John Lennon would have known this, he would have sung, "Mama, I don't wanna be a husband, I don't wanna die".

The second example goes even farther. LV Charlier found a correlation of 0.86 between the size of the stork population in Oslo over a period of about 40 years and the number of babies born there each year.

I can imagine a Harry Belafonte type of situation in his classic song Man Piaba, when a small boy will ask the dreaded question to his father, thus:

"Father, where did I come from?".

The father will reply, "Son! Scientifically speaking, its the birds and the bees. Statistically speaking, its the stork!"