Resource Library

This issue contains an interview with Sallie Keller-McNulty and an article about which came first -- the chicken or the egg. Other articles include a discussion related to an AP Statistics example of seeing the trees for the forest (this focuses on understanding variability between groups and within groups), a discussion of how high r can go, a simulation piece focused on shrinking students, poisoned children, and bootsraps, and an example of a permutation test of the Challenger O-Ring data.

Every time man makes a new experiment he always learns more. He cannot learn less. is a quote of American inventor and author Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983). The quote appears in his 1963 book "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth".

A joke that might be used in discussing correlation - especially in health studies. The joke is adapted from a joke told by comedic magician Omar Covarrubias. The revised joke was written by Larry Lesser, University of Texas at El Paso, for use in the statistics classroom.

...the most misleading assumptions are the ones you don't even know you're making is a quote by English author Douglas Noel Adams (1952-2001) that can be used in teaching the importance of understanding the assumptions being made that underlie statistical inference. The quote is from the 1990 book "Last Chance to See" that was co-written with Mark Carwardine. It is part of a passage that Adams wrote about his experience watching a silverback gorilla in Zaire and trying to imagine what the animal was thinking about him.

A sketch by Anastasia Mandel reinterpreting Hat Shop by August Macke (1914) with the statistical caption "Discrete choice models, with a hat matrix." This is part of a collection of sketches by Anastasia Mandel and their accompanying statistical captions discussed in the paper "How art helps to understand statistics" (Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, 2009) by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel in volume 4 pages 313-324. Free to use in classrooms and on course websites.

A sketch by Anastasia Mandel reinterpreting Government Bureau by George Tooker (1956) with the statistical caption "Queuing theory and implementation." This is part of a collection of sketches by Anastasia Mandel and their accompanying statistical captions discussed in the paper "How art helps to understand statistics" (Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, 2009) by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel in volume 4 pages 313-324. Free to use in classrooms and on course websites.

A sketch by Anastasia Mandel reinterpreting Hunters at Rest by Vasily Grigoryevich Perov (1871) with the statistical caption "Capture-recapture statistics." This is part of a collection of sketches by Anastasia Mandel and their accompanying statistical captions discussed in the paper "How art helps to understand statistics" (Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, 2009) by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel in volume 4 pages 313-324. Free to use in classrooms and on course websites.

A sketch by Anastasia Mandel reinterpreting Woman Holding a Balance by Johannes Vermeer (1662-63) with the statistical caption "Sample balancing: "A false balance is abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is his delight.", Proverbs, 11:1" This is part of a collection of sketches by Anastasia Mandel and their accompanying statistical captions discussed in the paper "How art helps to understand statistics" (Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, 2009) by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel in volume 4 pages 313-324. Free to use in classrooms and on course websites.

A joke that might be used in comparing Bayesian and frequentist interpretations of probability attributed to statistician Xiao-Li Meng.

Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security. is a quote by American mathematician and Temple University professor John Allen Paulos (1945 - ). The quote is found in his 2003 book "A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market" where he is referencing something told to him by his father.