Abstract:
The world has changed in transformative ways. Data and evidence are
ubiquitous. Quantitative information suffuses our talk of everything from
policy to health care to job searches to politics to sports to education to
dating to national security.
As a result, statistics and quantitative reasoning must no longer be the
purview of only those who have a knack for mathematics or are headed for
technical careers. Acquiring competence in foundational quantitative
reasoning is now a fundamental responsibility of every educated human
being and citizen. And this necessitates new ways of teaching and learning.
It was with that goal in mind that we decided to write Thinking Clearly
with Data. But we didn’t start with the book. Much of the material and
ideas that ultimately found their way into the coming chapters were first
developed for courses aimed at providing to students with little technical
background the tools needed to be serious, thoughtful, and skeptical
consumers of quantitative information. These courses include traditional
university offerings, like introductions to quantitative reasoning taught to
both undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Chicago. But
they also include executive education courses offered to policy makers,
military officers, national security experts, intelligence professionals, and
journalists.
We learned a lot of lessons along the way that inform the choices we
made in writing and organizing this book. Perhaps the most important was
