Resource Library

There is no free hunch. is quote by American psychologist and political scientist Robert P. Abelson (1928 - 2005). The quote is found on page 142 of his 1995 book "Statistics as a Principled Argument". It is referred to as "Abelson's Sixth Law" in a discussion of the generalizability of estimated effects.

No matter how much reverence is paid to anything purporting to be statistics," the term has no meaning unless the source, relevance, and truth are all checked." is a quote by American English professor Tom B. Burnam (1913-1991). The quote is found on page 244 of his 1975 book "The Dictionary of Misinformation".

Everyone believes in the normal law, the experimenters because they imagine that it is a mathematical theorem, and the mathematicians because they think it is an experimental fact. is a quote by French physicist Jonas Ferdinand Gabriel Lippmann (1945-1921). The quote may used in a class discussion of the assumption of normality. It can be found in Henri Poincare's 1896 book "Calcul de Probabilities" (in French).

Indeed, the laws of chance are just as necessary as the causal laws themselves. is a quote of quantum physicist David J. Bohm (1917- 1992). The quote appears on page 23 of his 1957 book "Causality and Chance in Modern Physics". The quote also appears in "Statistically Speaking: A dictionary of quotations" compiled by Carl Gaither and Alma Cavazos-Gaither.

This is a song suitable for middle school level statistics in reinforcing key elements of the scientific method. College-level use might include playing before a lecture to lighten the mood while setting up. The song's lyrics and music were composed by Jeff Hall audio file is a performance by the scientific jam band (see www.scientificjam.com/scijam2.htm)

A statistical analysis, properly conducted, is a delicate dissection of uncertainties, a surgery of suppositions. is a quote from Statistician Michael J. Moroney (1940 - ). The quote appears in his 1951 book "Facts from Figures".

At their best, graphics are instruments for reasoning about quantitative information. is a quote by American statistician and political scientist Edward R. Tufte (1942 - ). The quote appears on page 9 of Tufte's 1983 book "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information".

I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians is a quote from American economist Hal R. Varian (1947 -) quoted in an August 5, 2009 "New York Times" article "For Today's Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics," written by reporter Steve Lohr. The article may be found online at www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/technology/06stats.html

A cartoon for use in discussing Uniformly Most Powerful Tests. Cartoon by John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea from Dennis Pearl (The Ohio State University). Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites.

Cartoon to be used in talking about probability models (the process of drawing objects from an urn as a basic probability model goes back at least to Jacob Bernoulli's 1713 paper Ars conjectandi). Cartoon by John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea from Dennis Pearl (The Ohio State University). Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites.