I'm not resigned, but I'm realistic too. The statistics in my case are very poor. Not many people come through esophageal cancer and live to talk about it, or not for long. And the other wager is, the part of the wager, it's a certainty you'll have a terrible time and you may wish you were dying because it's an awful process.
Extreme heroism springs from something that no scientific theory can fully explain; it's an illogical impulse that flies in the face of biology, psychology, actuarial statistics, and basic common sense.
In 1973, I was offered a professorship at the University of California, San Diego. Although I was certainly not unhappy at Nottingham, I had been there over twenty years from starting undergraduate studies to Professor of Applied Statistics and Econometrics, and I thought that a change of scene was worth considering.
On completing my degree, I started a Ph.D. in statistics, although I knew very little about the topic. My supervisor was Professor Harry Pitt, who was an excellent pure mathematician and probabilist.
Railing at scientists for massaging tree-ring statistics won't stop the globe from warming if the globe is actually, you know, warming.
Service learning connects classroom studies to real-world issues, with hands-on activities and problem solving. Youth can study biology and ecology by testing the water in their own community; or learn about statistics, calculating the food supply and usage at the local food bank.
Society and medicine treat us all as members of populations, whereas as individuals we are all unique, and population statistics do not apply.
The statistics might have a Eurosceptic cast, but they are not exactly a fun read. Few of us want to wade through ONS graphs or European Commission tables.
Life it is not just a series of calculations and a sum total of statistics, it's about experience, it's about participation, it is something more complex and more interesting than what is obvious.
If we are to appropriate money for roads, we need statistics on how bad our roads really are and, moreover, where more roads will be beneficial - it would be irresponsible to just build them where our gut tells us to.
