Week 5

This week the statistics and the scientific reasoning start to come together. How nice! And we will look at our drawings of scientists and try to think about how to classify the information they contain.

Assignments:

CGS = Cartoon Guide to Statistics by Larry Gonick and Woollcott Smith
USR = Understanding Scientific Reasoning by Ronald Giere (4th edition)
GC = Galileo's Commandment edited by Edmund Bolles

Before coming to class, you should have completed the following readings:

CGS: No new material! Review chapters 1-7.
USR: chapter 6a (pp. 157-172) Notice that we skipped chapter 5. You might find it useful to read as part of your statistics review.
GC: Charles Darwin (pp. 111-116)
Thomas H. Huxley (pp. 257-266)
Alfred Wallace (pp. 389-399)

In addition, you should have completed the following exercises:

USR:

Exercises 5.2, 5.3, 5.5, 5.11, 5.12 (Yes, these are in chapter 5!)

CGS:

Review the exercises in chapters 2-7 of the study guide.

And finally, remember that your second short paper is due this week.

Activities:

Evolution lecture
Scientific reasoning seminar: Statistical hypotheses
Draw a scientist
Sampling and t-tests

Looking ahead:

In week 6, we will look specifically at statistical hypotheses and follow a method for evaluating them. We will also have a guest lecture on Darwin and the culture of his time. And we will discuss past studies of the Draw a Scientist Test.