FAES Educational Webinar Series: Statistics for Terrified Biologists
Speaker: Johannes P. Doehl, Ph.D., Visiting Post-Doctoral Fellow, NIAID (STAT 014, STAT 016)
In biological science, statistics is often treated like a family's least favorite cousin; we do not want to deal with him, but we cannot avoid acknowledging him. I cannot recount the number of freshman biology majors I have encountered who were dismayed when discovering that biology is not the fabled math-free science. Perhaps, this is in part the reason why stats education is often so poor in biology bachelor's programs; it sure was for me. Ironically, while most of us are certainly not trained to be statisticians, we are all expected to be able to perform statistics correctly. As a consequence, biological science publications often teem with errors in the applied statistics to sometimes devastating consequences. Thus, in this brief presentation, I hope to show you that getting to know your least favorite cousin may show you that despite the family rumors, he is in fact a good friend and when treated with kindness and understanding will always lend you a helping hand and help you to stay honest.
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