Re: [Marxism] statistics for students?

["Roland Chrisjohn" <rchrisjo@xxxxxx>]

For a class with limited time on stats I suggest you give 
them the two tables on sex discrimination in graduate 
school from Wonnacott & Wonnacott's "Regression: A second 
course in statistics," and let them try to make sense of 
the result.  I'd think they could stew about it for at 
least an hour or so before realizing they've hit a brick 
wall.  Then give them Simpson's 1951 paper on his 
"paradox" so they come to appreciate the inherent 
limitations in thinking that statistics answers questions.

I believe the graduate school example is in chapter 2, but 
if you search the index under Simpson's Paradox it should 
point you to the exact page.

There are additional examples for more traditional social 
science kinds of data in Edwards' "Introduction to Linear 
Regression and Correlation," but he misunderstands them. 
 They are still useful, however, as examples of how the 
exact same data presented in slightly different ways give 
"answers" that are 180 degrees different.

Roland Chrisjohn

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