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There's lies, there's dam lies, and then there's
Topic Started: Feb 8 2008, 04:04 PM (782 Views)
mareseatoats
Thomas H. Cruise!
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STATISTICS! :censored: :mallet: :soapbox: :psycho: :angry: :argh: :censored: :mallet: :soapbox: :psycho: :angry: :argh: :censored: :mallet: :soapbox: :psycho: :angry: :argh:


Phew! vent over. back to regularly scheduled program of study.... :innocent:
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justmagic
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Is the meadow on fire?
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Dear god. Bless your heart.

I do a lot with stats and boy do I hate it. When I get backed into the corner with it I go "I'm not really the stats person. I'll have R&D give you a call"

I have a "Stats for Dummies" book. It's pretty good... for a stats book :spew:
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OnyxThePony
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You're BANNED!
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Stats is nothing. Ever have to do Organic Chemistry? :P

Still, I just started working on my BSc (again) and when I transfer my old credits, I only hope to God I got a good mark in Stats (good being over 85) and they are willing and able to credit me with it!!!!!!! :P

**passes much chocolate to maresy**
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OnyxThePony
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You're BANNED!
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Ohyeah. And how the he!! do you get so many smilies in a post? When I post over five it tells me I've too many?! :mallet:
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mareseatoats
Thomas H. Cruise!
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Not sure, Onyx. I get the too many smilies notice when I put in a ton of'em, but I can definitely do a bit over 5. Yikes...I couldn't stand being stuck with only 5 smilies. <_< :(

What has been buggin' me about YE WHO SHALL BE NAMELESS is that I should have gotten 100 on the 1st quiz, but the prof took a poll of the class to see whether we should have the quiz at the beginning with a time limit or at the end with no time limit. The vote was 50/50 so he held it at the end. That was after 2 hours of focussing on totally different stuff from the quiz. So in the quiz, I zoned out and totally forgot the labels "Class Limits" and "Class Boundaries." I likely had the right data in there, but labeled, and this is a direct quote, "Ranges?" and "I can't remember!" <_< :sigh:

:huh: What was buggin' me tonight about YE WHO SHALL BE NAMELESS was an astronomy example and how they came up with an inference that a pattern suggested a cycle, when the pattern was a list of speeds of a bunch of individual stars. Since everything is moving away from the big bang, how would any star's apparent speed be a cycle? I know they just wanted the reader to notice a pattern and figure out it might be important to an astronomer. But without a *whole* lot of other info, maybe the difference in apparent speeds between the different stars represents the *direction* they are moving in? I mean, I'm not an astronomer and I don't know this (or any) particular set of stars, so how can I make *any* inference from a list of star speeds. So it really bugged me. Many of their examples bug me. They're trying to make it "interesting." They're just pissing me off. Like the big headline, "What happened to baseball hits?" with stats for the last 50 or so years. And the numbers haven't changed, but other factors have. So the stats don't show you anything. So why did they waste 2 minutes of my time reading that crap? I *know* that stats w/out a lot of other info show nothing.

But I'm all over it. Truly I am. :psycho:

:pissed: Because I have a new beef with YE WHO SHALL BE NAMELESS, which is that in class we skipped a small section that I just went through, in which we have to figure out the sample standard deviation of a set of prices. And I went through the whole freakin' thing and came up with a wrong number, and then had to re-do the whole thing and *guess* that when you're dealing with $$, you change the price difference from $0.xx to xx so that when you square it you'll get a whole # instead of teeny fractions. I mean, you think they *might* have mentioned that in the book. Although it's slightly possible that they think they *did* explain it, but their explanations are so convoluted that they never get around to saying what they think they're saying. :o Or something like that...


Aaaack. Time for bed. I can't take this any more... :psycho: :lol: :psycho: :lol:
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Ride'emCO
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Off visiting Candy Cave, be right back.
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Math bad. :oops:


I changed my major in college just so I didn't have to deal with Math, or Statistics. :o
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Heart River
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Shunnnnn the unbeliever. Shunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.
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Lonely voice in crowd says: Statistics are useful. Especially especially if you are going to be looking at them a lot in your medical/vet career, because it's absolutely critical that you can distinguish between valid and invalid use. Most doctors, for example, are HOPELESS at explaining to patients what the likelihood is of X happening, and not much better at reading medical journals and figuring out when the article is using statistics in such a way as to make results seem what the sponsor wants them to seem.

It's just that it's really painful learning how they're constructed. Once you've got it, you'll be miles ahead of everyone else.

Did you know, for example, that most women overestimate, BY A FACTOR OF TEN, the likelihood that they will develop a life-threatening breast cancer?

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Trialbyfire
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You're BANNED!
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Well, of course....there is a difference between learning statistics and using statistics.

Many of us have been in your shoes before. Not every teacher is great, some aren't very good at all. My undergrad stats professor was GREAT at teaching Intro Stats...I loved her class. My grad school professor was probably good at using them in the real world (she was adjunct)...but not so much at teaching it. I was lucky to have taken a few stats courses in undergrad but some of my peers were not so lucky and had to work much harder.

My undergrad archeology professor was awful, my religion professor was a joke; had some of the best teachers in econ...if only I could remember what they said. Had a very terrible ancient adjunct in grad school for administrative law....and one of the most brilliant men I ever met who taught public management and who became my grad school advisor...if I only could have taken all my classes from him.

Don't take this the wrong way....I'm trying...but it's hard for me to be empathetic. Such is life. Such is college....take the good and deal with the bad.....it's a good life lesson.
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buryinghill2
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It'll be an adventure! We're going on an adventure!
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Organic chemistry is one of several reasons I did not pursue more education. I am not going there! :unsure:
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mareseatoats
Thomas H. Cruise!
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Heart River, I hear ya. I know there's good statistics and abused statistics. I know this will be useful. I know this will be useful. I know this will be useful. (my new mantra, lol). I didn't know the factoid about women and breast cancer, but it doesn't surprise me in the least. I suspect it has less to do with any actual statistics than the way the dire threat is rubbed in our faces on the news.

TrialbyFire, don't strain yourself on the empathy. I really don't give a flying eff. HE WHO SHALL BE NAMELESS is both the subject and the author of the book on the taboo subject, not the teacher. I know the author is trying his best, but as a former professional writer, I'm just not impressed. The teacher is actually quite nice and I like him (except that he's trying to do a 15 week course in 13 weeks in order to avoid a snowstorm makeup class :o , and had us take the quiz at the end of the class so I didn't get my standard 100% <_< . ) And since I'm past middle aged, already have a BS and am going for a 2nd degree out of unemployment desparation, I'm well aware that that you have to take the bad with the good in life. That's not going to stop me from venting when the bad gets to where there isn't enough chocolate in the house :shoot: !
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watsoncrick
Schooling
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mareseatoats
Feb 9 2008, 07:04 AM
except that he's trying to do a 15 week course in 13 weeks

This is nothing. One summer I decided to take physical chemistry - a whole semester jammed into a 5 week session.

Am I the only one here who absolutely loved organic chemistry? My favorite course of all time!
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naters
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It'll be an adventure! We're going on an adventure!
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Organic Chemistry: Did the summer session I (4 weeks)

Organic Chemistry II: Did the second summer session.

I *think* that is why I don't like it.

I have one word for everyone:

THERMO.

Yeah, that's my statistics.... LOL
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CDE Driver
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It'll be an adventure! We're going on an adventure!
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Holy Cow you guys! Just reading this thread about makes my head explode :lol: :lol:
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Trialbyfire
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You're BANNED!
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mareseatoats
Feb 9 2008, 10:04 AM
TrialbyFire, don't strain yourself on the empathy. I really don't give a flying eff. HE WHO SHALL BE NAMELESS is both the subject and the author of the book on the taboo subject, not the teacher. I know the author is trying his best, but as a former professional writer, I'm just not impressed. The teacher is actually quite nice and I like him (except that he's trying to do a 15 week course in 13 weeks in order to avoid a snowstorm makeup class :o , and had us take the quiz at the end of the class so I didn't get my standard 100% <_< . ) And since I'm past middle aged, already have a BS and am going for a 2nd degree out of unemployment desparation, I'm well aware that that you have to take the bad with the good in life. That's not going to stop me from venting when the bad gets to where there isn't enough chocolate in the house :shoot: !

Sorry, but I read a long rambling post from someone complaining because they didn't get a 100 on their stats test....I thought it sounded very much like someone in their first year of undergrad who's used to being the A student in high school.

I guess I didn't get your point. Yes, we all need to vent sometimes.
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Jersey Fresh
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Off visiting Candy Cave, be right back.
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OnyxThePony
Feb 8 2008, 06:27 PM
Stats is nothing. Ever have to do Organic Chemistry? :P


Man I hate orgo chem until I had to take graduate level biochemistry FOR MAJORS! Two semester of it. ;)

I swore if I passed the two semsters, I would never bitch about orgo again.

And grad level stats. Worst. Professor. Ever. I won't even go there... :mallet:
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