Links for 2010-05-03

“Statistics is hard. But that’s not just an issue of individual understanding; it’s also becoming one of the nation’s biggest political problems. We live in a world where the thorniest policy issues increasingly boil down to arguments over what the data mean. If you don’t understand statistics, you don’t know what’s going on — and you can’t tell when you’re being lied to. Statistics should now be a core part of general education. You shouldn’t finish high school without understanding it reasonably well — as well, say, as you can compose an essay.”

“The Science Tarot is a creative science communication project that combines science, art, and mythology into a tarot deck to engage and awaken people’s curiosity about science and the natural world.”

“Does this function have any use in physics? Not really as such, though it’s interesting in that if you plant a bunch of identical telephone poles in a square grid, this function happens to represent what you see if you’re looking at it from ground level at one of the corners.”

“There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does.”