Here is the latest offering of Indexed drawings from our regular guest poster Jessica Hagy. Her past posts are here, her own blog here, and her new book here.
If the past is any indication of the future, then at least one commenter will write something to the effect of: “Huh? What are these drawings doing on the Freakonomics blog? They don’t belong here. Because Freakonomics is about [fill in the blank], and not about [fill in the blank]. Get rid of these!”
And then someone else will write something like: “Shut up. Jessica Hagy is brilliant, and if you weren’t such a numbskull you would know that.”
And the rest of us will sit back and be nearly as entertained by the comments as by Hagy’s work.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Both Freakonomics and Jessica Hagy search for mathematical relationships where people might not ordinarily look for them.
The tooth fairy to candy should have the curve reversed as the proportional effect of more candy is reduced once cavities set in and there is a max cavity limit equal to the number of teeth.
Both economists and Jessica Hagy draws incomprehensible graphs. (I mean, what’s up with the dependent variable on the horizontal axis?)
I enjoy the Freakonomics blog, but I have to admit, I skip all of these posts. I don’t find them to be interesting or entertaining. I actually only checked this one out to see what other commenters have to say.
at Josh #10 – I’m quite sure one can (at least in theory) have more than one cavity in a tooth…
Erik-
The candy consumed on Halloween is surely the independent variable. The amount of tooth fairy visits the following month depends on how much candy is eaten the month prior.
The only way candy consumed could be influenced by tooth fairy visits is if the profit earned is used to purchase more candy… but that’s getting a little beyond the humor of the drawings, no?…
I don’t think A & B are independent. Rejection of a lover can be based on logic.
Also to consider: tooth fairy visits are partially dependent on candy consumption. Tooth fairy visits are also a function of age of the population under consideration – with most of the AUC between ages 6 and 12 years. The plot does not account for the non-candy related visits.
Comments about appropriateness of Indexed posts successfully avoided! I salute you, fellow readers.