No abstract

The influence of personal opinions and biases on scientific conclusions is a threat to the advancement of knowledge. Expertise and experience does not render one immune to this temptation. In this work, one of the founding fathers of statistics, Karl Pearson, is used as an illustration of how even the most talented among us can produce misleading results when inferences are made without caution or reference to potential bias and other analysis limitations. A study performed by Pearson on British Jewish schoolchildren is examined in light of ethical and professional statistical practice. The methodology used and inferences made by Pearson and his coauthor are sometimes questionable and offer insight into how Pearson's support of eugenics and his own British nationalism could have potentially influenced his often careless and far-fetched inferences. A short background into Pearson's work and beliefs is provided, along with an in-depth examination of the authors' overall experimental design and statistical practices. In addition, portions of the study regarding intelligence and tuberculosis are discussed in more detail, along with historical reactions to their work.

A one semester Calculus-Based undergraduate Statistics course for the engineering student is a service course for most Mathematics departments. The typical student uses this course to gain understanding of how data is analyzed and interpreted. Technology allows a better way to give the tools an engineer needs to understand the concepts and ideas in statistics. This paper will show what has been implemented so that a student is successful in this course and beyond the classroom. The technology that we use is through many different avenues in a course. One way that technology has helped us teach this course is through the delivery of the lectures. We have designed an online course that is as successful and no different as if the student is sitting in a classroom. Another way that we have changed is through the use of statistical software. We have used RStudio as the software of choice. This is a great tool for the engineering student to use for any data analysis. This allows us as instructors also to use real-world problems and relevant application to their majors. Lastly, for larger universities it is important to have coordination among all of the sections of the Calculus based statistics course. We have implemented a course management system and testing center to accommodate the larger sections. These ideas we have successfully implemented into this course which is a Calculus-Based undergraduate statistics course. This course has become a popular course in the past years. Thus we would like to share what we have experienced.