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Statistically Speaking
What Are the Odds?
One of the peculiar things about law is that in order to go to law school, you are required to have a four year degree, but it really doesn’t matter much what you major in at your college. I recall in my class, (class of 78) there were a wide variety of majors. The kids from the more traditional schools had the usual, pre law, econ, English, etc. The kids from the more liberal schools had degrees in snake charming, dancing with pixies, and talking about your feelings, etc. I obtained my undergraduate degree in Econ / Math. Neither of which I believe I have used since 1978. Imagine then my glee when I discovered that our staff member, Amy, was taking Statistics, and needed a little help. "Don’t worry" I exclaimed "I took that class in 1977 and am sure I can help!!!" .
The appointed day for the first tutorial finally arrived. Here is an exact transcript of the statistics session.
GREG: Glad to help with Statistics, always loved that class, so let’s unlimber our math tools and get to work.
AMY: What are those?
GREG: Why, this is my slide rule, and this is my logarithm book. That’s what we’ll use to do these calculations.
AMY: Ha, ha, ha. What are they really?
GREG: That’s what they are, and I’ll tell you right now, they are really really accurate. I am sure more so than that calculator you’re holding. Let’s put them to the test. We’re supposed to take this data, do a scatter graph, calculate the standard deviation, and do it in logs. Ha, piece of cake. Let’s see who gets done first!
(10 minutes later)
AMY: Are you done yet?
GREG: Nearly, don’t you need to type something?
(20 minutes later)
AMY: OK, I typed those letters, now are you done?
GREG: Of course, let’s compare answers.
AMY: I calculate a median of 3.5, and a mean of 4. Since the scattergraph is linear I believe using the mean and one standard deviation of 1.7 is the appropriate measure. What did you get.
GREG: Three.
AMY: Three what.
GREG: How should I know. Three. Back in my day the number three was enough young lady!!!
AMY: So what did you come up with in terms of the probability that if the data were to extend an additional year, the likelihood that the rise and run would continue as a positive linear function.
GREG: Pretty likely. What do you think?
AMY: There is a 62 percent chance the line will continue on a positive course.
GREG: Yea, that’s what I said, pretty likely.
Having helped Amy with Statistics just one time, it turns out she is doing very well, and doesn’t need my help any longer. What were the odds of that?
