The February caption contest cartoon is shown here. The judges found the winning caption to be “Don’t worry. Normally the cannon is right on target … give or take a standard deviation or two,” written by Laurie Baker at the College of the Atlantic. Laurie’s caption can be used to introduce ideas of the bias (degree of being on target) and reliability (degree of deviation) of estimators. An honorable mention this month goes to Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso for the caption; “The can(n)ons of statistical science include testability and empiricism.” Larry’s caption focuses on these general canons for scientific research that apply deeply to statistics.
Thanks to everyone who submitted a caption and congratulations to our winners!