Measured Thinking: Reasoning with Numbers about World Events, Health, Science, and Social Issues

Interdisciplinary Studies 100-02, Fall 2008

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. This presence of numbers suggests, in turn, that 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 highly rewarding.

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 the construction of sound and principled arguments using quantitative evidence. The writing consultant for this course is Peter Bonamici, a Carleton student who completed this course last year.

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.
Miller, J. (2004). The Chicago Guide to Writing about Numbers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Tufte, E. (1997). Visual and statistical thinking. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.

Class Meeting Schedule: Tuesday/Thursday, 10:10-11:55, Laird 205

Tuesday, 9/16: Why study quantitative reasoning? Using, finding, and evaluating quantitative information. Visit with Ann Zawistoski, Carleton Reference Librarian.

Paulos, J. (1988). Innumeracy: Examples and principles, pp. 3-14.

Thursday, 9/18: Got numbers? Applied uses of quantification; An introduction to writing about numbers. Overview of Numbers We Should Know Project.

Gawande, A. (2007). Better: A surgeon’s notes on performance, pp. 51-69, 169-200.
Miller, J. E. (2004). The Chicago guide to writing about numbers, pp. 11-31.

Tuesday, 9/23: Central tendencies: Summarizing numbers with integrity, questioning summaries knowledgeably.

[Numbers We Should Know Paper 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, 9/25: Using numbers to address social issues; Community service applied analysis: The
Jesse James Bike Tour; Speaking with numbers.

[Numbers We Should Know Paper Reviews (bring 2 copies).]

Levitt, S. D., & Dubner, S. J. (2005). Freakonomics, pp. 3-15.
Miller, J. E. (2004). The Chicago guide to writing about numbers, pp. 53-79, 239-264.

Tuesday, 9/30: Graphic knowledge; Speaking with data.

[Numbers We Should Know Revised Paper Due]

Tufte, E. (1997). Visual and statistical thinking, pp. 1-31.
Cohen, I. B. (2005). The triumph of numbers, pp. 158-177.
Best, J. (2004). More damned lies and statistics, pp. 42-62.
Miller, J. E. (2004). The Chicago guide to writing about numbers, pp. 129-166.

Thursday, 10/2: Quantification in medicine and health, and in the public eye.

[Numbers We Should Know Oral Presentation Due]

Wootton, D. (2006). Bad medicine: Doctors doing harm since Hippocrates, pp. 1-26, 259-268.
Taubes, G. (1995). Epidemiology faces its limits, pp. 164-169.
Goldacre, B. (2005). Don’t dumb me down, The Guardian, 4 pp.

Tuesday, 10/7: The case study: Smoking and public health; Introduction to the HealthFinders
Collaborative project, a community service application.

Brandt, A. M. (2007). The cigarette century, pp. 105-207
Ramage, J. D., Bean, J. C., & Johnson, J. (2007) Writing arguments, pp. 109-121.

Thursday, 10/9: A dash of historical and cultural perspective on quantification.

[What Does the Health Literature Show? Paper Due (bring 3 copies).]

Cohen, I. B. (2005). The triumph of numbers, pp. 17-35.
Robinson, A. (2007). The story of measurement, pp. 7-17, 27-31.
Igo, S. E. (2007). The averaged American, pp. 1-22, 281-299.

Tuesday, 10/14: Measurement: Generating numbers and meaning.

[What Does the Health Literature Show? Paper Reviews (bring 2 copies).]

Miller, J. E. (2004). The Chicago guide to writing about numbers, pp. 83-101. Henshaw, J. M. (2006). Does measurement measure up? pp. 37-54.
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.

Thursday, 10/16: 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.


Tuesday, 10/21: Statistical decisions in probabilistic contexts.

[What Does the Health Literature Show? Revised Paper Due.]

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.


Thursday, 10/23: Chance decisions: Hypothesis testing in statistics, Summarizing a research
literature.

Walsh, A., & Ollenburger, J. (2001). Essential statistics, pp. 79-87, 97-104.
Miller, J. E. (2004). The Chicago guide to writing about numbers, pp. 40-52.
Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2005). Contradicted and initially stronger effects in highly cited clinical research,
pp. 218-228.


Tuesday, 10/28: Data in argument: A case study. Visit by Mary Lewis Grow.

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


Thursday, 10/30: Data in argument: A case study.

Hemenway, D. (2004). Private guns public health, pp. 152-226.
Miller, J. E. (2004). The Chicago guide to writing about numbers, pp. 200-238.


Tuesday, 11/4: Surveys and sampling.

[Evaluating Hemenway’s Arguments Paper Due.]

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, 11/6: Correlation and regression.

Best, J. (2004). More damned lies and statistics, pp. 37-42.
Miller, J. E. (2004). The Chicago guide to writing about numbers, pp. 33-40.
Walsh, A., & Ollenburger, J. (2001). Essential statistics, pp. 213-231.

Tuesday, 11/11: Reading The Times.

[Evaluating A New York Times article Paper Due.]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/03/business/03generic.html


Thursday, 11/13: HealthFinders project.

[HealthFinders Report Due.]


Tuesday, 11/18: Closing: Quantification, criticism, and responsibility.

[HealthFinders Revised Report Due.]