Lyrics by John Bailer from Miami University about the value of successful statistical modeling that won an honorable mention in the 2025 A-mu-sing Contest. The song is a parody of the 1972 hit song by Johnny Nash "I Can see Clearly Now" and the vocals on the audio were performed by Kent Peterson from Oxford Presbyterian Church in Miami Ohio. In using the song for teaching, John suggests that each verse could be connected to a question or two. Here are examples:
Verse 1: How does an effective visualization reveal pattern? What types of patterns might emerge? How might such patterns be captured in a model?
Verse 2: What are ways variables are 'engineered' as part of an analysis?
Verse 3: How does the introduction of a confounder in a model potentially impact the estimated coefficients of other variables in a model?
Verse 4: AUC* is one way the predictive quality of a model is described. What are other features of a useful model?
* AUC stands for Area Under the Curve for the Receiver Operator Characteristic
Bridge: Residuals following a normal distribution are expected for some types of models. What other distributions might be expected? What else might be learned from the residuals?
Verse 5: Why are we more confident with interpolations than extrapolations?