....luck be a lady tonight ...

If I had my way (if I were  was king of the world), statistics would be compulsory for all students at senior secondary school.

Absolutely compulsory.

This short 3 min video argues the case more eloquently than I me.

Much As I love calculus, probability and statistics is the way to.

A woman,  Sally Clark, suffered the loss of two sons in a short space of time (just over 1 year) to cot death. It was considered such an unlikely event in the space of such a sort time, that she was presumed guilty of their murder.

In court, a pediatrician (as an expert witness) told the jury that the likelihood of such an event was 1 in 73 million.

He reasoned thus:

Likely-hood of one cot death = 1 in 8500


So likely-hood of two deaths = (1in 8500) x (1 in 8500) = 1in about  72 million

For more details click here

Maybe a great pediatrician, but a fat-lot-of-use statistician. The women was sent to jail.

She later got released on appeal.

The dunce doctor, among other things, had assumed independent events!  aaaah!!

The jurors, lawyers and judge were ignorant of the most basic concept in statistics.