Times New Roman
The winners of the Purdue University Indianapolis' "Spurious Correlations
Contest" are announced below. We had a fiercely humorous contest with
entries that spanned the globe. The contestants put on their conceptual
Rube Goldberg caps and spun some mighty tall tales to win fabulous prize
money & also contribute to a local children's-hospital charity. (For our
friends across the pond, Rube Goldberg was famous for his cartoons of
multi-step solutions to simple problems).
The individual category winners are:
1. Amount of ice cream sold and deaths by drownings (Moore, 1993).
Dr Paul Gardner
Monash University, Australia
Increases in nuclear power generator accidents (Chernobyl, Three Mile
Island...) have resulted in greenhouse gas increases, ozone layer
reduction, average world temperature rise and increases in the fraction
of heavy water in rain. Concerns about nuclear catastrophe have resulted
in increases in eating disorders, especially among those with a genetic
predisposition to obesity. Heavy water in rain has resulted in an
increase in the specific gravity of cream produced by cows, while the
increasing world temperature has resulted in an increasing attendance at
beach resorts, coupled with increased consumption of ice cream. The
increased weight of fat worried people whose centre of gravity has been
lowered by a rising consumption of heavy ice cream has caused an
increased number of deaths by drowning. For a detailed account of the
research methods used to investigate this complex effect, see my
forthcoming paper, "Path analysis methods in lacto-sociological
research".
2. Ministers' salaries and the price of vodka.
Heli Olkkonen
Land of the Midnight Sun
When ministers' salaries are low the price of vodka rises because when
ministers' salaries are low they are so unmotivated and stressed from
trying to make ends meet that they deliver terrible sermons one cannot
simply listen to. So people stop going to church and stay at home instead
and in their idle time start to feel guilty because they have chosen not
to listen to god's message. To dull the guilty feelings people turn to
alcohol, vodka being a premier choice because it is strong and
relatively not too expensive. When vodka producers realize the increased
demand for vodka, they in turn raise their vodka prices. All this because
the ministers' salaries dropped!
3. Doctors in a region and number of people dying from disease
Ben Dunford
soon to be of Cornell University
The number of doctors in a region is correlated with the number of
lawyers in a region because of all of the malpractice protection needed
by doctors. The higher number of lawyers in a region leads to an
increase in the number of frivolous lawsuits in that region. The quantity
of frivolous lawsuits drives up insurance premiums in general. The high
price of insurance premiums leads to a greater percentage of the region
that cant afford adequate health care. The inability for a large
percentage of the region to afford adequate health care results in a
large number of people dying from disease.
4. Number of police officers and number of crimes
Eric Harrell
Purdue University Indianapolis
In efforts to clean up Indianapolis, the police chief hires some New York
City police officers to join the force (the officers helped clean up NYC
a few years ago). Unfortunately, there aren't nearly as many doughnut
shops in Indy as there are in NYC and the police officers grow restless.
The officers roam the streets and neighborhoods in search of doughnut
shops. The few doughnut shops they find are in the suburbs and so the
officers begin to spend most of their time patrolling these areas and
less time in the downtown area (which has more crime anyway than the
suburbs). The obvious absence of police presence downtown encourages
several crime families to increase their "business" activity.
5. Number of storks sighted and population of Oldenburg Germany over a
six year period were positively correlated (Glass and Hopkins, 1996).
Dr. Ron Malzer
Wisconsin
Oldenburg Germany has the world's highest proportion of adults who read
the works of Immanuel Kant, and each year its population is increased due
to the immigration of Kantonians from other places. As Kant discussions
increase, there is pressure on the cooks to prepare ever-increasing
quantities of wurst. As quantities increase, quality decreases. Bad wurst
in Germany has been known to lead to thought disorders. This in turn
causes misinterpretations of Kant, which are known as
Unkantverstehenlassenhummels. As these increase, so do visual
impairments, as a result of having to read this word. Double vision is
one result, thereby causing at least a doubling of stork sightings each
year.
6. Teacher's salaries and the price of liquor (Moore and McCabe, 1993).
Katie Brandt
Purdue University Indianapolis
The government regulators know that if teachers made enough money, they
would simply sedate their ADHD students (and students with behavior
problems) with small but strong strains liquor (on a regular basis -
mixed in with Kool-Aid or soda). To prevent the legal problems this
would cause, the regulators are sure to keep the cost of liquor high
enough so that teachers cannot afford to do this.
7. Number of fire trucks and amount of fire damage (Judd, Smith, and
Kidder, 1991).
Katie Brandt
Purdue University Indianapolis
While this could be another case of intentionally starting fires in
effort to attract the fire people, this seems highly unlikely.
Firefighter salaries are modest. The only logical explanation is that
the community just feels so darn safe knowing that there are more fire
trucks around, that they simply are not as careful and concerned with
fire safety. They feel so confident that a truck would rescue them in an
instant, before a fire could spread very far, so they are just careless.
With this inappropriate assumption and subsequent increase in fires, the
firefighters are even less able to arrive at a scene on time. Thus, more
damage occurs.
And the overall winner is:
RON MALZER!!!! for his double-visionary KantWurstian theory!
.....................................
' Jeff Rasmussen, PhD '
' Indiana University Indianapolis '
' 402 North Blackford '
' Indianapolis, IN 46202 '
' '
' Quantitative Software: '
' http:\\psychology.iupui.edu\fb '
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