Resource Library

Avoid Linear extrapolation ... The turkey's first 1000 days are a seemingly unending succession of gradually improving circumstances confirmed by daily experience. What happens on Day 1001? Thanksgiving. The quote is by John E. Sener (1954 - ) of Sener Learning services found in the on-line article "Strategies for Effective `20/20 Vision` -- #1: Avoid Linear Extrapolation" at www.senerlearning.net/?q=node/176. The quote is paraphrasing the turkey metaphor made famous by Bertrand Russell and Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Inside every nonBayesian there is a Bayesian struggling to get out. is a quote by British Bayesian Statistician Dennis V. Lindley (1923- ). The quote is also cited on page 497 of E.T. Jaynes 2003 book "Probability Theory: The Logic of Science".

This short article begins with a brief explanation of 3D barcodes (what they are and how they are used), and then provides an argument for why statistics should be studied and how statistics is a part of everyday life. Several links are shared for other resources related to teaching and learning statistics, in addition to a link to a career options in statistics.

I bet on a horse at ten-to-one. It didn't come in until half-past five. is a quote by comedian and violinist Henny Youngman (1906 - 1998).

Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cock-sure of many things that were not so. is a quote of American Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841 - 1935). The quote is found in an article written by Justice Holmes in 1918 for the "Harvard Law Review" v. 32, page 40. The quote is also found in the book "Statistically Speaking, a Dictionary of Quotations" by Carl Gaither and Alma Cavazos-Gaither.

Brandon Vaughn from the University of Texas: Some students in statistics classes exhibit behaviors that share characteristics with the established construct of learned helplessness. This webinar will discuss this phenomenon, and detail an instrument recently developed which measures this (HILS: Helplessness in Learning Statistics).

Most accidents in well-designed systems involve two or more events of low probability occurring in the worst possible combination. is a quote by American systems engineering expert Robert E. Machol (1917 - 1998). The quote is found in his 1975 column "Principles of Operations Research" for the journal "Interfaces" vol. 5, pages 53-54 (this column was titled "The Titanic Coincidence."

Statistics educators are keenly aware of the value of using real data to help students see the relevance and applicability of statistics. The federal statistical agencies have invested in significant efforts to make data accessible and available. In this webinar, Ron Wasserstein will point you to these resources, discussing their uses and limitations.

This anecdote about luck and the horseshoe is found in "Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes" (2000: page 68).

I remember my friend Johnny von Neumann used to say, with four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk. includes the quote attributed to Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann (1903 - 1957). The full quote was relayed by Enrico Fermi in 1953 when he was asked about the value of a result that used four free parameters in fitting experimental results. (see "A meeting with Enrico Fermi" "Nature" 427: p. 297.)