Tuesday Sept. 6th

Mini Statistics Unit

• What is a statistic?
  What does a statistician do?
• CORRELATION vs. CAUSATION
• Correlation means that two phenomena appear to be linked.
  Positive correlation: As one goes up, the other goes up
  Negative correlation: As one goes up, the other goes down
• How can this be misleading?
  It does not mean that one is CAUSING the other. This is called causation.
  For example: "Students arriving to school in a Lexus do better in their first period class than students who take the bus"
  Is the LEXUS the specific cause of their academic success? Probably not.
• What are other reasons these events might be correlated?
  The human brain is still the best tool for determining whether events are actually in causal relationship, or if there is more to the story.
• Check out these examples. They're pretty funny.
  
• Misleading Data - see pictures below

SDSU vs. Harvard acceptance rates. Does this data mean that SDSU is "more selective"? Why or why not?

• SDSU accepts 8% of students
• Harvard accepts 9% of students