Measured Thinking: Reasoning with Numbers about World Events, Health, Science, and Social Issues
Interdisciplinary Studies 100-00, Fall 2006

Neil Lutsky
Olin 111, x4379
nlutsky@carleton.edu

“the cognitive skill to distinguish among hope, faith, possibility, probability, and certitude
are potent weapons in anyone’s political survival kit and can be applied in all areas of life and society.”

-Robert Kuhn, American Scientist, September, 2003

This course addresses one of the signal features of contemporary academic, professional, public, and personal life: a reliance on information and arguments involving numbers. Given this, we need to be able to evaluate quantitative evidence thoughtfully and critically, and to employ quantitative skills to their best advantage to contribute to society. This seminar is designed to help you strengthen these abilities and to learn more about the role of quantification in contemporary discourse.

In this course, we will work together to identify general rules or principles that may help guide our understanding and evaluation of a wide variety of claims about the world. Some of what it will take to do so will require a modest introduction to statistics and research methodology--and we will pursue that background when necessary--but most of what we need will involve sharp and attentive thinking about how quantitative information is generated, summarized, evaluated, and represented. What I hope this course will show you is that developing the habit of thinking intelligently about quantitative claims is vitally important, not that difficult, and even highly enjoyable.

A benefit of taking this seminar is that you will be learning about quantitative reasoning without the pressures associated with standard grading. You will pass this course as long as you attend and participate in the seminar regularly, and complete, with due diligence, the assigned readings and required projects. I will say more about the projects in class, but they will involve writing about quantitative information and revising that writing. This is a WR (writing rich) course, and you will work on refining your writing skills in this course as we address how to construct sound and principled arguments using quantitative evidence.

Seminar Books:

Best, J. (2004). More damned lies and statistics. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hemenway, D. (2004). Private guns public health. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Tufte, E. (1997). Visual and statistical thinking. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.

Class Meeting Schedule: Tuesday/Thursday, 10:10-11:55, Olin 102/104

Tuesday, 9/12: Why study quantitative reasoning? What does this course address?

Cohen, I. B. (2005). The triumph of numbers, pp. 17-35.
Paulos, J. (1988). Innumeracy: Examples and principles, pp. 3-14.

Thursday, 9/14: Got numbers? Using, finding, and evaluating quantitative information.
Visit by Kristin Partlo, Carleton Reference Librarian.

Story, L. (2005). Many women at elite colleges set career path to motherhood. The New York Times, 2 pp.
Shafer, J. (2005). Weasel-words rip my flesh! http://slate.msn.com/id/2126636/, 2 pp.

Levitt, S. D., & Dubner, S. J. (2005). Freakonomics, pp. 3-15.
Gladwell, M. (2006). The risk pool. The New Yorker, pp. 30-35.
Cutts, M. (2006). How does Google collect and rank results? 4 pp.
Lohr, S. (2006). This boring headline is written for Google. The New York Times, 1 p.

[Numbers We Should Know Project]


Tuesday, 9/19: Central tendencies: Summarizing numbers with integrity, questioning summaries knowledgeably.

[Numbers We Should Know Papers Due (bring 3 copies).]
Best, J. (2004). More damned lies and statistics, pp. 1-7, 26-37.
Walsh, A., & Ollenburger, J. (2001). Essential statistics, pp. 33-45.
Gould, S. J. (1985). The median isn’t the message, 6 pps.


Thursday, 9/21: Community service data project: Evaluations of the 2006 Jesse James Bike Tour.

[Numbers We Should Know Paper Reviews (bring 2 copies).]
[Project Introduction and Data Entry]
Stein, R., & Kaufman, M. (2005). New diabetes drug poses major risks. Washington Post, 1 p.


Tuesday, 9/26: Arguing with data: Community service data project.

[Numbers We Should Know Revised Papers Due.]
Ramage, J. D., Bean, J. C., & Johnson, J. (2007) Writing arguments, pp. 109-122.
Miller, J. E. (2004). The Chicago guide to writing about numbers, pp. 11-31.

[Project Data Analysis and Discussion]


Thursday, 9/28: Graphic knowledge.

Best, J. (2004). More damned lies and statistics, pp. 42-62.
Cohen, I. B. (2005). The triumph of numbers, pp. 158-177.
Tufte, E. (1997). Visual and statistical thinking, pp. 1-31.


Tuesday, 10/3: Charting clarity: Designing informed and informing graphics.

[JJBT Evaluation Papers Due (bring 3 copies).]
Miller, J. E. (2004). The Chicago guide to writing about numbers, pp. 129-166.


Thursday, 10/5: Measurement: Generating numbers and meaning.

Henshaw, J. M. (2006). Does measurement measure up? pp. 1-54.
Rivlin, G. (2006). In vino veritas? The New York Times, 3 pp.
Best, J. (2004). More damned lies and statistics, pp. 7-25, 91-169.

Tuesday, 10/10: The oddities of a life of chance: Understanding risk and probability.

Taleb, J. (2005). Fooled by randomness, pp. xxxix-42.
Abelson, R. (1995). Statistics as a principled argument, pp. 1-11.
Best, J. (2004). More damned lies and statistics, pp. 63-90.


Thursday, 10/12: Statistical decisions in probabilistic contexts.

Hill, R. A., & Barton, R. A. (2005). Red enhances human performance in contests, p. 293.
Walsh, A., & Ollenburger, J. (2001). Essential statistics, pp. 55-71.


Tuesday, 10/17: Chance decisions: Hypothesis testing in statistics.

Walsh, A., & Ollenburger, J. (2001). Essential statistics, pp. 79-87, 97-104.


Thursday, 10/19: Correlation and regression.

Best, J. (2004). More damned lies and statistics, pp. 37-42.
Walsh, A., & Ollenburger, J. (2001). Essential statistics, pp. 213-231.

Tuesday, 10/24: Data in argument: A case study. Visit by Mary Lewis Grow.

Hemenway, D. (2004). Private guns public health, pp. xi-78, 79-151.


Thursday, 10/26: Data in argument: A case study.

Hemenway, D. (2004). Private guns public health, pp. 152-226.


Friday, 10/27, 9:40, Convocation: David Hemenway, Harvard University School of Public Health.


Tuesday, 10/31: Surveys and sampling.

Newport, F., Sand, L., & Moore, D. (1997). How are polls conducted? 6 pps.
Walsh, A., & Ollenburger, J. (2001). Essential statistics, pp. 77-79, 89-90.

Thursday, 11/2: Effect size; Summarizing research literatures.

Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2005). Contradicted and initially stronger effects in highly cited clinical research, pp. 218-228.


Tuessday, 11/9: Public health in the public eye.

Taubes, G. (1995). Epidemiology faces its limits, pp. 164-169.
Goldacre, B. (2005). Don’t dumb me down, The Guardian, 4 pp.


Thursday, 11/11: Final Papers Due and Presented.




Tuesday, 11/14: Quantification and responsibility.