Caption Contest - May 2019 - Results


We had 34 submissions for the May caption contest that featured a cartoon showing a fortune teller with a crystal ball outside the "National Statistics Building". There is a long line of people trying to get into the building but only one person getting their fortune told.

The first of the co-winning captions for the May contest was "Statisticians are fortune tellers but with greater accuracy,” written by Mickey Dunlap from the University of Georgia. Mickey’s caption can be used in a discussion of prediction – and the difference between the accuracy of a single prediction and quantifying the level of accuracy for a prediction method.

The other co-winning caption was "I see you come from a long line of statisticians," written by Douglas VanDerwerken from the U.S. Naval Academy. Doug's clever pun can be related to the multiple testing problem by talking about how a fortune teller will get some predictions right if they make a long line of them.