Resource Library

The great tragedy of Science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. A quote of English biologist Thomas H. Huxley (1825 - 1895) from his Presidential address in 1870 to the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Published in "Biogenesis and Abiogenesis," vol. 8, Collected Essays (1894).

The plural of anecdote is not data. Attributed to American economist Roger E. Brinner in the on-line list of quotes at www.keypress.com/fathom/fathom1/quotes.html

... statistics - whatever their mathematical sophistication and elegance - cannot make bad variables into good ones. Quoted from "Analysis of Nominal Data" by H.T. Reynolds (Sage, 1984) p. 8

Data! Data! Data! he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay." Stated by Sherlock Holmes in "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" by scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 - 1930)

That's not an experiment you have there, that's an experience. Ronald A. Fisher (1890-1962.) Quoted in "Statistics", third edition, by David Freedman, Robert Pisani, and Roger Purves (Norton, 1998)

A quick pun about "autocorrelation" by Bruce White.

A quick pun about the "log scale" by Bruce White

A quick pun about modeling and examining lack of fit by Bruce White

A cartoon that can be used in teaching about summary statistics. Cartoon by John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea from Dennis Pearl (The Ohio State University). Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites.

During this simulation activity, students generate sampling distributions of the sample mean for n = 5 and n = 50 with Fathom 2 and use these distributions to confirm the Central Limit Theorem. Students sample from a large population of randomly selected pennies. Given that the variable of interest is the age of the pennies, which has a geometric distribution, this is a particularly convincing demonstration of the Central Limit Theorem in action. This activity includes detailed instructions on how to use Fathom to generate sampling distributions. The author will provide the Fathom data file upon request.