Making Statistics
Delicious, Not Just Palatable
New Class Puts Statistics in the Middle of Real Life (Where It’s Been All Along)
Harvard News Office, Reprinted courtesy of the Harvard Gazette
M
oney, love, health, innocence, or
guilt—even finding the right wine.
Who doesn’t want to know more?
“Real-Life Statistics: Your Chance
for Happiness (or Misery),” offered this
semester by Harvard’s Department of
Statistics, will explore the tools critical to
making good judgments in matters large
and small.
To do that, the new course will “dem-
onstrate the use of statistics without [stu-
dents] actually learning lots of formulas,”
said Department Chair Xiao-Li Meng,
chief architect and teacher of what is for-
mally known as Statistics 105.
The first-time offering is meant to
appeal to the statistics novice (only one
prerequisite is required). It also might
inspire others to join a field Meng calls
“underappreciated” (and whose practi-
tioners he says are much sought-after on
Wall Street and elsewhere).
From right: Department Chair Xiao-Li Meng shares chocolates with members of his “happy team,”
“This could be their last statistics course,
graduate students Yves Chretien, Paul Edlefsen, Kari Lock, and Cassandra Wolos.
or almost their first statistics course,” he
Staff photo Rose Lincoln/Harvard News Office
said of prospective students. He acknowl-
edged, in particular, a majority of students
and taking time out to finish his doctorate laptop—a first use of the interactive tech-
who “just get scared” when confronted
in statistics. nology for a Harvard statistics depart-
with the science of chi-square tests, corre-
On January 30, about 100 students ment course. “Real-time feedback,” said
lation coefficients, and regression analysis.
filed into the cavernous Science Center B Chretien, “real-time data.”
In practical terms, every student read-
for the opening class of Statistics 105. In In online romance terms, what would
ing technical papers, or even just the
a joke-filled and lively 90 minutes, Meng you like on a first date, Meng asked. A
newspaper, said Meng, “should know
gave them a taste of all five topics. person who plays “hard to get,” or one
what arguments are scientifically and
“Everybody wants money,” he said of who is “clearly into” you? The clicker data
statistically sound.”
the finance section, led by a chart illustrat- was strong: 4-to-1 in favor of a date clear-
But, why not learn by having fun?
ing Wall Street profit trends and how to ly into them.
Statistics 105 was put together over two
mine it for useful data. “And once you have But can you generalize from a data
years with the help of what Meng calls his
money, you want romance.” set drawn from a room full of Harvard
“Happy Team” of graduate students. It
Meng led the students through lessons students in roughly the same age group?
uses five modules of inquiry drawn from
on polling for data in the world of online No, said Meng. A good survey requires
the worlds of finance, romance, medicine,
romance, explaining the science of query knowing the people whose opinions you
legal judgments, and food choice—in this
populations and question design. “The are collecting.
case finding the best chocolate.
dating world,” he said, “is full of questions In the world of health and medicine,
“Statistics is about making decisions in
we would all love answers to.” he outlined the complexity of judgment
the real world,” said Happy Team mem-
The students helped get a few answers needed to draw a conclusion from clini-
ber Yves Chretien, an MD/PhD student
by responding to in-class survey questions cal trials—“a huge industry,” he said, “and
midway through Harvard Medical School
using hand-held clickers linked to Meng’s exceedingly complicated.”
18 AMSTAT NEWS APRIL 2008
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