Don't Worry - Accept Uncertainty

I found an interesting blog post ...

How to Stop Worrying and Why

... and I have to say I am all for their #1 piece of advice:

1. Learn to accept uncertainty

People who worry a lot don’t like uncertainty in their lives and because they cannot control the dangers in life for themselves and their loved ones they worry even more. You have to accept uncertainty in your life. Accept the fact that you love someone enough, including yourself, to worry about them, but you cannot control what may or may not happen.

That right. Uncertainty. It's about the only thing in life you can count on so we may as well get used to it. (For that matter, you could be like me and make a career of it.)

Law of Large Numbers is Alive and Well

I originally wrote this for the newsletter of a local statistics professional group in late August, 2002. Writing "Time to Play" reminded me of this, and after finally discovering the archived-archive where it was hiding, I have dusted it off to present as a bit of recycled writing. The only trouble was I couldn't decide which of my blogs to put it on; Science and Math, or Math and Games? Since I'm facing a bit of a time crunch this week anyway, I'll post it to both. Problem solved! (but I'll try not to make a habit of it.)

Law of Large Numbers is Alive and Well
at 2002 GENCON Games Fair

“All these people came here to play games?” said one astonished worker to another, as they walked through the midst of several thousand people at the 35th GENCON Games Fair, all busily rolling dice or shuffling cards for a dazzling variety of games. I almost trailed them to see if I could overhear more comments, but I needed to get back to my own session. However, I did continue to think about this pair, and about why people like games.

My own exploration of probability began with the boardgame Risk when I was young, and soon I was writing my own simulation programs on an Apple II+. I was fascinated by the thought of enumerating all the possible outcomes and determining the best strategy for winning the game. This self-study soon expanded to include most of my favorite games, got me hooked on computers, and eventually led me to the study of statistics and a career. I still like to study my favorite games; I love to play them, disassemble the rules, study the probabilities, put them back together again, then go play some more.

Looking over the GENCON crowds gathered in the Midwest Center, I have to believe that there are lots of people out there who are quite interested in probability, and whether they know it or not, interested in statistics too. Some of the people I spoke to are very knowledgeable of the probabilities involved in a game. Furthermore, THEY THINK IT’S FUN.

Now, when was the last time your heard someone describe their college stats class as fun? How many times have you seen people get the “your-a-WHAT” look on someone’s face when you tell them of your profession? I have personally met at least half a dozen people still in statistical-shell-shock, twenty or more years after taking an intro level stats course. How many people have you met that would consider statistics to be fun?

I am very happy being a statistician, but I sometimes think that as a profession, we haven’t done a very good job of selling ourselves. Too many people have the impression that statistics has to be dull, boring, or cryptically complex. Too many people think that statistics are something they can’t understand. It doesn’t have to be that way. I think statisticians need to try harder to increase awareness of what we do, what it’s good for, and how it can be of benefit. I think it’s very important to reach out and find ways to attract new people to our profession, and to let them know that it offers excellent opportunities.

There are plenty of people who are interested. There are plenty of people who grasp the basic concepts. I know there are, because I just saw thousands of them at GENCON. All of them were shuffling cards or rolling dice, all of them putting the Law of Large Numbers to the test, and all of them loving it.

Update - Six Years Later: The need for statistics education has not gone away. There is more and more information being presented to us every day, and our ability to process all that information is limited. A working knowledge of math and statistics is a crucial skill nowadays. I don't mean that every person needs to understand high level probability theory (heck - I don't understand all that stuff - at least not very well), but I do mean that every person needs to be educated as a consumer of information. They need to know what the numbers mean, and when they don't mean anything at all. They should have a basic understanding of how numbers are presented (descriptive stats), what they represent (estimation), and how decisions are made on this basis (inference).
I should add for the benefit of students interested in math and statistics at more than a basic level; there are a lot of jobs available to you even as an undergraduate; there are a graduate statistics programs desperate for good students and willing to pay you to go to school; there is a rich field of careers in math and stats to look forward to, and finally - if you work it right - it might be a lot of fun.

Future Famous Quotations

Just a few sayings that I want to be remembered long after I am gone.

If the answer is not apparent,
then you may not be considering the right question.

If another person disagrees with your answer,
then they might not be considering the same question.

Argument over whether the answer is "true" or "false" is irrelevant if the correct answer is "blue".

When asking a group of people if they think the answer is "true" or "false", someone will almost certainly answer "blue".

If you never fail at what you do, then you never know if you might have done it better.

What words do you want to be remembered for?

Richard Simmons and the PE Crusade

In an effort to scare off both my readers support a really good cause, I'd like to draw your attention to the PE Crusade. All the colorful one asks is a moment of your time to send the following message to your congressman:

On behalf of Richard Simmons and the nation's children, I respectfully ask that Physical Education be included in the reauthorization of the NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT as an optional multiple measure, or implemented through the passage of the FIT KIDS ACT. Healthy minds and healthy bodies are key to our childrens' and our nation's future. The longer this takes, the unhealthier our kids become.

Here's that link again.

Vote Early, Vote Often

Over at WebLogAwards you can vote for the best Science Blog of the Year. I wasted no time in voting for my fav --> Improbable Research. The best part is that you get to vote once a day! So get busy and get voting for your favorite.

Best Science Blog

It seems that Pharyngula is getting most of the attention again this year. I wish that guy PZ would quit hogging all the fame and glory. ;-)

A matter of some Gravity

From Cosmic Variance - There may be a new explanation for gravity:

Gravity Emerges…From Neutrinos?

(But this fails to take into account donutons, so it can't possible be correct.)

Statistics on Blogs of Note

So what happens when a virtual tidal wave of internet traffic strikes your blog? Why, you blog about it of course!

My other blog (GBR ) was the "Blog of Note" for December 23rd, 2008. On a scale of events for a new blogger like me, this goes beyond exciting and well into the frightening zone. Here is what my traffic looked like on GBR the week before -

- and for comparison this blog (DTA) for the same period.

The traffic is about the same, and nothing too exciting. It had been slowly been building up to this since I started these blogs back in September (2008). DTA got a bump around the 14th with traffic coming in from another blog where I had been commenting (Science and Math Defeated, IIRC).

Then on the afternoon of the 23rd I had two comments, which I thought was great. I replied, then noticed my hit count was 400 for the day and climbing fast. For reference, I only had about 500 total hits (since September) as of that morning. Something was up. A check on StatCounter showed me I was getting a huge amount of traffic from Blogs of Note. Here's the GBR chart -

- and again for reference the chart for the same period for DTA.

It just happened that my lead post on GBR for the 23rd had a link to DTA, so you can see a bit of a click-thru effect here. I don't make a habit of linking to myself (outside the blog roll anyway) because I want each blog to stand on it's own, but in this case it was good luck because DTA picked up a few readers too.

Here is the continuous chart for GBR, Dec 12 through Dec 31 -

- and the same for DTA.

I anticipate that my GBR traffic will fade a bit when it slips off the "last ten" page, but I'll likely get a small but steady flow from people looking at the older "noted" blogs.

Wow. It's been quite a ride. I can't tell you exactly why my blog was selected, but I'm sure it helped that I occasionally post in the Blogger help forums, giving the folks at blogger an excuse to look at what I'm up to. Google Analytics tells me I've got 100+ readers for GBR now, so the pressure to perform is on. I'll try not to let anyone down.