Peter's Post
Statistics for Future Presidents
I recently started reading Richard Muller's book, Physics for Future Presidents, and it made wonder what statisticians would include in a book of statistics for future presidents. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments space of this blog entry or by emailing me:pierson@amstat.org.
I'm aware of lists for the most important statistical skills for statisticians (e.g., The 5 Most Critical Statistical Concepts), K-12 students, non-science majors, and professions such as journalists and medical practitioners. I'm eager to hear what statistics you’d recommend for future presidents (or policymakers more generally) and how it would compare with the recommended statistical skills/concepts for others.
Muller's book organizes his book into a discussion of five topics: terrorism; energy; nuclear weapons, power and waste; space; and global warming. Would a Statistics-for-Future-Presidents book also be organized by such topic areas or would be organized into more statistical thinking categories (interpreting data, assessing study/report conclusions and survey results, decisionmaking in presence of uncertainty, assessing/managing risk, …) or some combination of these?
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