Are You Walking the Dog or Is the Dog Walking You?

FlowingData shared this video, and I just had to pass it on:

I think it is a wonderful metaphor for explaining a statistical concept that is often baffling to students. I already plan to use it in my Research Methods course this spring, and I think it will be great to have in my pocket for other courses, like intro, where confusion on these types of things often arises.

Nathan Yau at FlowingData points to the folks at Spark (and the closing statement of the film) who use this to demonstrate the difference between variations in the weather and the overall trend in global warming. I can think of several other topics that this could address as well. For example, many economic measures, like unemployment or the Dow Jones Industrial Average, are quite variable in the short term but point to underlying trends in the long term. Public opinion polls would be another example.

Overall, I think this works really well, and I'm grateful to FlowingData for getting it out there.