cause and effect

I was reading news stories on Reuter's this morning and came across a new study. Researchers have determined that men who work in unchallenging jobs with little control over their future tend to be less active off the job as well.Now, I don't doubt that there is a relationship between a passive work role and the amount of activity someone engages in off the job. However there are a few quotes

I was doing a little light reading on my Saturday night in my Oxford Dictionary of Statistics by Graham Upton and Ian Cook and came across this definition:nonsense correlation: A term used to describe a situation where two variables (X and Y, say) are correlated without being causally related to one another. The usual explanation is that they are both related to a third variable, Z. Often the

I think I've mentioned this somewhere on my blog before, but last year right before I left for the Miracle Oracle Open World conference, I found myself unexpectedly responsible for a new system. Up until that point, I was working in an 'advisory' role for the project - available to answer questions, offer guidance, etc. I had no authority to direct the work, it was just assumed that the other