MATH 3870 - Inventing Statistics

3 hours

Critical examination of the central concepts of statistics using the original books and papers, the historical situation and the biographies of some of the creators of statistics. Topics include the debate on Bayes’ theorem, John Snow and the Broad Street pump, the origins and rise of statistics, the controversy concerning the normal distribution and the central limit theorem, the debate on confidence intervals and sufficient statistics, and other topics. Intended for both mathematics majors and students majoring in other disciplines that make use of statistics and mathematical reasoning.

Prerequisite(s): MATH 1710, junior or senior standing, and one of the following: MATH 1780, MATH 3680, MATH 4610, ECON 4630 or DSCI 3710, or another appropriate advanced probability, statistics, or quantitative methods course with the consent of the department.