Dancing on the Tails of the Bell Curve

Each year tens of thousands of professors confront over a million students required to take statistics courses in almost every discipline—from anthropology to zoology. Because most students did not choose to take “stat” courses, they lack the motivation to learn and use statistics and, therefore, experience statistics as a “grunt” subject to pass at all costs. Professors try to overcome this problem by giving interesting lectures and assigning good textbooks and websites, but these literary and electronic resources are not meant to inspire students to want to learn and use statistics. This important gap is filled by Dancing on the Tails of the Bell Curve—a unique anthology designed to supplement the technical resources professors assign in their classrooms—which has one goal: to inspire or motivate students to want to learn and use statistics. Through carefully selected readings, this book provides role models for students to identify with who have experienced joy from their use of statistics and concrete examples of how statistics shape almost every decision in society that involves our laws, medications, food supply, interest rates, educational programs, sporting events, mass media, and entitlement programs, to name only a few. This reader is ideal for statistics professors to assign in their courses, as well as for parents of children underachieving in their statistics courses, students who want to gain motivation to learn and use statistics, and professionals who work with data and could benefit from additional motivation to improve their statistical skills, in fields such as marketing, healthcare, polling, law, sports, government, and academia.