<HTML>A much more plausible (but still incorrect) scenario proposed (in jest) by one of my students is that divorce leads to a greater need for housing, which in turn leads to a greater demand for sinks, the majority of which will be steel.
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That is actually an excellent idea.
My point was only that the more perfect a correlation, the greater the odds in favour of there being a relationship between the two. Thus we should not dismiss a connection between sink sales and the divorce rate simply because it appears patently ridiculous.
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Please describe how you would differentiate statistically between a perfect correlation that occurrs by chance and one that does not.
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A theoretical *perfect* correlation (in the absolute sense) has a chance factor of zero (but of course, *perfect* correlations never exist, and even where apparent are dependent upon our own ability to measure them - which introduces further uncertainty). Deviations from perfection provide the means by which the uncertainty factor can be quantified. A sufficiently minimal chance factor produces a "statistically proven" case for a relationship.
ISHMAEL</HTML>
