SCI 199 L0411 -- Reasoning about Numbers and Tackling Innumeracy -- 2004-2005

First hand-out on major paper (pdf)
Three sample paper proposals (from Nancy Reid)
Note that the due date for the proposal has been extended to Thursday, March 3.
Major papers should be 10-15 pages long.

Ideas of topics for major paper (running list)

Some useful and interesting books (running list)

Hand-out on class presentations
How your presentations will be graded

Help from graduate students in Statistics is available at the New College Statistics Aid Centre

Course outline

Minor paper: topics and information on grading.

For class on Thursday, September 23 please read the article Lifelong debunker takes on arbiter of neutral choices

For class on Thursday, October 14, read the article "Three Sisters Give Birth on Same Day". There are copies available outside my office.

There is no class on Thursday, October 28.

For class on Thursday, November 4, read the article "Statistical Problems in ESP Research" by Persi Diaconis. There are copies available outside my office. You can also get it through the UofT library. It is published in the journal Science, volume 201, 14 July 1978, pages 131-136.

For class on Thursday, November 11, read the article How to Calculate Chances of Doomsday by John Allen Paulos from the ABC News website.

For class on Thursday, January 13, read "Seven Statistical Stories with Morals" and consider how the morals can be connected to points that Paulos makes in Chapter 5 of Innumeracy. There are copies of the reading outside my office.

For class on Thursday, January 20, read the article The Median isn't the Message by Stephen Jay Gould

For class on Thursday, January 27, read the article Assessing the Accuracy of Polls and Surveys

For class on Thursday, February 7, read the article Is using a car phone like driving drunk? and Statistical inference and testing

For class on Thursday, February 24, read the article The Dead Grandmother/Exam Syndrome and the Potential Downfall of American Society

For class on Thursday, March 10 read the article Why Journalists Can't Add (in MS Word format; e-mail me if you require another format)

E-mail course instructor: alison.gibbs@utstat.utoronto.ca