Should taking at least one probability and statistics course be required...
 

in high-school? There are so many things that you cannot understand without some knowledge of probability and statistics so shouldn’t a basic probability and statistics course be required learning before students can graduate high-school?

In my probability and statistics course I learned that I can make anything look like anything and that statistics can't be trusted.

So....yes.

Hell YES!

I'm constantly amazed by seemingly bright people who use anecdotal evidence to draw broad, sweeping conclusions.

Here's one I heard recently. "My sister had too many ultrasounds during her pregnancy, so the baby was born with only one testicle!"

But that would take the fun out of our "debates" here if we had to introduce cold logic.

Emotion is so much more entertaining.

Along with probability and statistics, a course in critical thinking and the scientific method would be wonderful.

Mike

Well, scientific method might just eliminate Creationism as a science.

There might be some who would strongly disagree.

Heck, the probability and statistics course would make a huge dent in Creationism as most of the proponents demonstrate a total lack of knowledge in those areas when it comes to old "evolution is impossible and I have the math to prove it" arguments... :>)

Mike

This thread has taken an interesting turn to include creationism and evolution. Personally, I think some knowledge of the basics of probability would only work against evolution. Let me dig up one of my old posts and maybe someone can point out my fallacious reasoning.


If the probability of flipping a coin and getting heads is 1/2, then the probability of flipping the coin twice in a row and getting heads both times is (1/2)^2 = 1/4 and the probability off getting heads three times in a row is (1/2)^3 = 1/8 and so on. Similarly, if after the first living organism sprang into life the probability of it surviving each mutation was 99/100, then the probability of it surviving the first 1000 mutations would be (99/100)^1000 = 0.000043171.

In other words, the idea that an organism would spontaneously spring to life and survive the first 1000 mutations without any help is very unlikely.

I think the far more interesting topic in this thread is the fact that Moses' nephew has only 1 ball.

Himmueller, had something similar

and Geuring, had nothing, at all...

Whoever said "statistics don't lie" had no clue whatsoever.

I've taken several of these types of courses in college and every time I develop less respect and more contempt for the discipline and the people who specialize in it.

Kids are dishonest enough, no sense providing them with formal training in dishonesty ;)

No, Sam Clements stole paraphased Voltaire:

"There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics!"

But seriously, the problem is not statastics, it is the misuse of statistics.

Just remember that in a recent poll of Democrats who are likely to vote, 94% said they hated Bush and the rest are in Jail...

Unless there were an enormously large number of events.

It's like a chimp sitting at a typewriter and randomly hitting keys and inadvertantly typing the Gettysburg Address. With enough chimps and enough typewriters, it will happen.

Statistics don't lie, people lie. As long as you use the right methodology the results will be mathematically valid.



http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/8...sis10wd.th.jpg

http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/9...sis24lj.th.jpg


http://img342.imageshack.us/img342/1...mple0vz.th.jpg (Specific example of hypothesis testing)

What do you mean by "enormously large number of events"? An enormous number of organisms spontaneously springing to life?

It is reasonable to consider that the conditions that permitted formation of the first single cell organism may have allowed the formation of countless others. It is not mathematically necessary for the very first cell created to survive millions of mutations.

Don't confuse the emotional ones! A book by Marilyn vos Savant dealing with people's perception of probability and statistics is titled "The Power of Logical Thinking" was extremly good. Which leads me to think that in evolution, the variables are not all known, so that computing a simple answer as to the probaility of "life" is not going to be very accurate.

And there might be a staggeringly low possibility that evolution, as it has occurred, might occur... but it it is still statistically possible.

You can't disprove evolution with probability. All you can prove is that it might be unlikely to happen again.

Is that what the theory says? That there were countless organism randomly springing to life?

There are only two possible outcomes for the organism after each mutation - it either survives or it dies. Nothing unique about that type of experiment.

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/984...rimenta0xm.jpg

Yes, when conditions are right. Exactly what happen with life now. Even Einstein had difficulty with this, but after a lot of thought, he came around to it. Probability will show that in the universe there have been millions or millions of the "right time and place" for life to form. And that these time periods could last for millions of our years. So... nothing in probability theory says life is spontaneously impossible or actually improbable.