Chance correlation

Term · Chemistry · MLC-T-CHM-001866

An apparent relationship between two or more variables that occurs purely by random coincidence, rather than reflecting a true underlying causal or associative link. Such correlations can arise in statistical analyses, especially when examining a large number of variables without a priori hypotheses. It is a common pitfall in data interpretation, where a p-value of 0.05 means one in twenty comparisons will appear correlated by chance.

Table 1. Record
Identifier	MLC-T-CHM-001866
Field	Chemistry
Subject	Chemistry and Human Health
References	PAC, 2016, 88, 239. 'Glossary of terms used in computational drug design, part II (IUPAC Recommendations 2015)' on page 243 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2012-1204)

Record as JSON

{
  "id": "MLC-T-CHM-001866",
  "term": "Chance correlation",
  "field": "Chemistry",
  "definition": "An apparent relationship between two or more variables that occurs purely by random coincidence, rather than reflecting a true underlying causal or associative link. Such correlations can arise in statistical analyses, especially when examining a large number of variables without a priori hypotheses. It is a common pitfall in data interpretation, where a p-value of 0.05 means one in twenty comparisons will appear correlated by chance.",
  "subject": "Chemistry and Human Health",
  "references": [
    "PAC, 2016, 88, 239. 'Glossary of terms used in computational drug design, part II (IUPAC Recommendations 2015)' on page 243 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2012-1204)"
  ],
  "url": "https://mlchart.com/terminology/chemistry/chance-correlation/"
}

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