No, seriously there is no physics to be done without statistics. Even in classical mechanics you need to repeat measures and then average, propagate the error and so on.<p>I understand this is all some rhetorical device, but basically all of the facts he quotes about the domains I know are wrong.
I usually enjoy his posts a lot, but this one let me down. He didn't really put much thought into applications of statistics. Maybe the academic perspective is too limiting.<p>There are lots of non-trivial problems that depend heavily on statistics for solutions. Some examples that come to mind --<p><pre><code> signal processing (optimal detectors, say for radar or modems)
medical image reconstruction (Poisson counting statistics, regularization)
wireless channel allocation
source/channel coding (for all radio comms)
gzip (and all universal source coding)
robotics (localization, object detection)
Kalman filters (navigation for planes, etc.)
hidden Markov models (for audio/speech processing)
weather prediction, data assimilation
</code></pre>
I'm just getting warmed up. Weird post.
"Science would pretty much be ok."<p>Here the author takes a very limited view of science. Specifically, genetics, neuroscience, and parts of molecular biology are completely ignored in the discussion of statistics and medicine.<p>Sure there is a fine line between methods which are purely statistics-based and methods which have elements of analysis in common with statistics-based methods, but I think the bottom line is that much of 20th century science has depended on statistics.<p>Since the early days of genetics, methods used in statistics have been important to genetics basically going back as far as Mendel. Earlier neuroscience, especially in the 19th century, was not so much quantitative as it was qualitative, but in the past few decades we have seen an incredible surge in the usage of statistics in neuroscience. Statistics is also important in molecular biology, although not all the time and not always in an obvious way. Statistics techniques were important in learning about basic types of molecules in the early 20th century when it wasn't clear that DNA and RNA were the key components of genetic information storage and transmission; the events leading to the development of biostatistics basically paved the way to Watson and Crick's results on the structure of DNA. Likewise, such techniques have become commonplace in chemistry in an era of computational molecular modeling.<p>So a world without statistics would have a very different type of science (a world in which Karl Popper would probably not be so upbeat about the state of scientific knowledge...).
Statistics is not only necessary, it may be one of the <i>most applicable</i> post-algebra subjects in math to most people. You can probably get by without knowing trigonometry, and can certainly get by without taking calculus, but basically <i>everybody</i> faces situations involving odds or risk everyday.<p>Unfortunately, we barely teach the subject in public education. Bad/incorrect use of stats is incredibly widespread - even in groups usually considered "highly educated"[1]. It's even worse once you get to the stuff that can be very non-intuitive such as Bayes.<p>Because of this widespread need, we should really inset a full class on statistics right after algebra in the high-school math schedule.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/</a>
I disagree with the trowaway line "And without statistics we wouldn’t have modern quality control, so maybe we’d still be driving around in AMC Gremlins and the like. Scary thought, but not a huge deal, I’d think."<p>In a world without statistics and tools for quality control, it would be immensely expensive to produce the most basic of industrial goods.<p>How could I order a nut that would fix a specific bolt without them testing each and every nut and bolt they produce? How expensive would those nuts be if each and every one were measured individually? Or how faulty would a package be if not enough were tested and the factory had no way to guess if their manufacturing process was faulty?<p>How can I even conceive of building a car if I cannot trust (or know how much to trust) each manufactured piece that composes it? Let alone food or medicine? The great value of the industrial revolution was repeatable processes that produced the same quality of material.
Science wouldn't be OK at all. Not only because he's forgetting all those other scientific discoveries that aren't Newton's or Einstein's, and not only because he's forgetting that there's a world of difference between a scientific result and the work done to get there, but also because we'd have no way to distinguish between a good scientific discovery and <a href="http://www.timecube.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.timecube.com/</a> re-stated in numbers.<p>In a world similar to our own but without statistics, probably the first thing we'd do would be to invent statistics.
God, I love this post so so much. "What good are statistics? At first, I didn't think statistics were all that important. All we'd lose is most modern improvements in automobile safety, comfort and fuel efficience, the FREAKING TRANSISTOR, and possibly even Allied victory in World War 2. But then I thought about it some more, and realized that statistics really are important, not just because otherwise we'd all be driving crappy cars without modern electronics and being governed by the Nazis, but because of how it teaches us to look at the world!"<p>Thanks, guy.
In a world without statistics you have none of the risk models that underpin the insurance industry and the financial system. No health insurance. No car insurance. No life insurance. No mortgages. No credit at all, really. It would not be a very friendly place.
In my view, a world without statistics would be like a world without 32. Somebody would eventually fill the hole. Would that be a world without probability? Without randomness? Sets?