Spurious Correlation and Data that Lies
Numbers might not lie—but they definitely mislead. In our data-obsessed age, we love to uncover patterns that seem to explain everything, from the stock market to human happiness. But without context or critical thinking, even the cleanest datasets can tell absurd (and dangerous) stories. This post dives into the world of spurious correlations—where margarine predicts divorce, cheese dictates stock prices, and journalists mistake coincidence for causation. Through humor and hard truths, it explores how data can both amuse and misinform—and why every correlation needs a thoughtful human interpreter.
Breaking the Cycle: How Feedback Loops Shape Humanitarian Work
In 1970, MIT professor Jay Forrester made a startling observation about urban poverty programs: many well-intentioned interventions were actually making the problems they sought to solve worse. Housing programs designed to help the poor were concentrating poverty and creating urban decay. Job training programs were pulling the most capable people out of struggling communities, weakening them further. Good intentions weren't enough—the systems themselves were creating cycles that perpetuated the very problems they aimed to fix.