the.com/scatterplot
a swarm of dots arguing about whether one thing causes another.
means a chart plotting two variables as points, so you can see if they move together, apart, or not at all.
from emerged with the rise of statistical graphing in the 19th century, credited partly to william playfair's data visualization work, though the term itself caught on as correlation and regression matured as fields in the early 1900s.
karl pearsonformalized correlation math scatterplots visually suggest
anscombe's quartetfour wildly different datasets, identical scatterplot statistics
no causationclustering shows pattern, never proves one causes other
trend linesoften added after, tempting overconfident conclusions