Simpson's paradox
Synonyms
Examples
Implications for decision making The practical significance of Simpson's paradox surfaces in decision making situations where it poses the following dilemma: Which data should we consult in choosing an action, the aggregated or the partitioned?
Many statisticians believe that the mainstream public should be informed of the counter-intuitive results in statistics such as Simpson's paradox.
Notably a Simpson's paradox in the comparison of unemployment rates of the 2009 recession with the 1983 recession, by Cari Tuna (substituting for regular columnist Carl Bialik).
Simpson's paradox shows us an extreme example of the importance of including data about possible confounding variables when attempting to calculate causal relations.
Simpson's paradox for quantitative data: a positive trend appears for two separate groups, whereas a negative trend appears when the groups are combined.