Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

I spoke at the University of Kansas the other day. Kansas is far away so I gave the talk by video. We did it using a G+ hangout, and it worked really well, much much better than when I gave a talk via Skype. With G+, I could see and hear the audience clearly, and [...]

John Cook writes that he’d like to hear more people talk about “educational monoculture.” I don’t actually know John Cook but I enjoy reading his blog, so I feel like the least I can do is to honor his request. I have to admit that I have a bit of a monocultural temperament myself. I [...]

From Allen Downey.

One advantage of teaching statistics is that you don’t have to worry about any celebrities taking your class.

Peter Woit links to Steve Hsu linking to a 1977 interview by Katherine Sopka of physics professor Sidney Coleman. I don’t know anything about Coleman’s research but the interview caught my eye because one of my roommates in grad school was one of Coleman’s advisees. Anyway, here’s the key bit from the interview: Sopka: But [...]

David Hogg sends in this bizarre bit of news reporting by Robert Evans: Until now, in the four decades since it was first posited, no one has convincingly claimed to have glimpsed the Higgs Boson, let alone proved that it actually exists. At an eagerly awaited briefing on Tuesday at the CERN research centre near [...]

Here’s what I’ll talk about for 3 hours:

Yongtao Guan writes:

This looks cool.

She was assigned to teach a class in “evidence-based medicine”! (link from my usual news source). I wonder what was in the syllabus? If anyone has a copy, feel free to send to me and I will post it here. My favorite part of the story, though, is this: Almost all physician assistant students refused [...]

Mark Palko asks: What are the worst examples of curriculum dead wood? Here’s the background: One of the first things that hit me [Palko] when I started teaching high school math was how much material there was to cover. . . . The most annoying part, though, was the number of topics that could easily [...]

This is sooooo cool. The actual statistical methods they are using are pretty crude, but that’s fine. What’s important is their focus on the important goal. It’s sort of like Bill James or Nate Silver: if you’re using good information, and you’re focused on good questions, then the fancy statistics can come later (or from [...]

Sometimes my computer goes blank when I’m giving a presentation and I haven’t clicked on anything for awhile. I mentioned this to Malecki and he installed Caffeine on my computer; problem solved.

In a thought-provoking article subtitled “Top athletes and singers have coaches. Should you?,” surgeon/journalist Atul Gawande describes how, even after eight years and more than two thousand operations, he benefited from coaching (from a retired surgeon), just as pro athletes and accomplished musicians do. He then talks about proposals to institute coaching for teachers to [...]