does anyone else here actually like statistics?

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I am taking the second of two stats courses that I am required to take for my degree. I was really worried about these courses...but I ended up really enjoying them. Stats is relatively basic math and simple logic. It makes sense...it is a lot more logical and objective than other courses I have taken. I am a psychology major...but I have changed my major a few times. After taking things like English and Philosophy it is so nice to take a course where there are actual right and wrong answers! (As opposed to bsinhg a perspective on so and so's theory for an essay). Also, some of what we have learned I found really interesting.....like the probability unit we did......it was like learning to solve logic puzzles.

This is a very unpopular opinion of statistics. Everyone I have mentioned that I am taking this course during the summer to automatically expresses pure disgust at the prospect of spending ones summer doing stats! The other students in my course seem to hate it. Even my dentist saw me studying while waiting in the waiting area for my appointment with him and said "statistics yuck!”

So...does anyone else here actually like stats? If not ...do you find it boring because it’s too easy, just boring, or too hard? Or is there some other reason? I am just curious.

I love stats. I was a TA for my stats II class. Oh, the joy of mixed ANOVAs! I think stats is so fun. And it's such a rush when you're running the tests: Are you going to reject the null? Will you find significance? If so, how great is your effect size?
-OddDuckNash99-

I was always really bored by statistics when I was at school . . . but then, I also hated maths and science (apart from Biology, which was slightly more exciting because it sometimes involved animals. Animals are scary and exciting because they are like magical, deformed people). I didn't see any point to statistics - I knew that I was never going to continue with my most loathed subjects, so the whole thing just felt like a contrived hoop I had to jump through to pass an exam . . . which I did - I got an A, remarkably.

"88.2% of statistics are made up on the spot." - Vic Reeves.

I like statistics that reveal something interesting about something.

I actually enjoyed any form of math when going to school/college. Statistics, at an Associate's level, was kinda easy, but still fascinating. However, regardless of what you're researching with it, you may wind up skewing the results (whether by accident or design). It's one of those things that you have to have an OC personality to do so that no/few angles are missed. I'm sadly not very OC, but it was fascinating while taking it.

Dr Ben Goldacre has a weekly blog about bad science and manipulation statistics. It can be a quite interesting read. Badscience.net

[quote="OddDuckNash99"]I love stats. I was a TA for my stats II class. Oh, the joy of mixed ANOVAs! I think stats is so fun. And it's such a rush when you're running the tests: Are you going to reject the null? Will you find significance? If so, how great is your effect size?
-OddDuckNash99-[/quote

I really like the two factors ANOVA's as well... because you can check that your answers are right before leaving a test.... (within treatments SS and df and between treatments SS and df add to total SS and df...and if you have a repeated measures factor between subjects and error SS and df add to between treatments SS and df). This is very good for my anxiety!

I haven't done my own research yet...but it must feel good to find a significant result. I am doing my honours thesis this year so hopefully I will get to experience this.
=)

lol I mean SS and df btwn sub. and error add to SS and df within treatments

It'd be epic if you made a poll for this

xD

Yes. But the problems started when I began reading a lot about statistics and probability on my own. I don't mean to be arrogant or rude, but through this reading I came to realise that what passes for standard practice in many fields, is at best a small slice of the very broad field of statistics. At worst it is a gross distortion of statistics proper.

For anyone who is interested, if I had to pick one article to start with, it would be
Goodman, S. N. (1999). Toward evidence-based medical statistics. 1: The p value fallacy. Annals of Internal Medicine, Vol. 130 (No. 12), pages 995-1004. (Available for free at http://www.annals.org/content/vol130/issue12/ .)
Sadly, if you want to get a good grade in your psych. stats. course, you should probably put off reading this article until the course is over. (PM me if you would like more things to read.)

Joining your country's statistical organisation (e.g. the American Statistical Association < http://www.amstat.org > in the USA, the Royal Statistical Society < http://www.rss.org.uk > in the UK, etc.) is a great way to get a sense of the breadth of the field of statistics. Student memberships are usually very inexpensive. Alternatively, your university's library may carry the organisation's newsletter and journals.

Finally, for those of you who are still in university, please consider taking a few courses from the departments of statistics and computer science, if only to broaden your perspective.

I hope you continue to enjoy statistics and do well in your courses.

I took a Statistics class during my senior year in high school. I only lasted a semester in that class, it was such a disaster. I started off doing fine in it, but then the subject matter just became more and more complex and I pretty much gave up on the class after about three months. Taking that class was probably the worst decision I made in high school.

I like quoting statistics, I've never taken a class in it though. I'm told there are a lot of word problems involved which I was never good at. I will probably take a college level stats at some point.

Like most undergraduate students, I took the path of least resistance when I was in college, and since I was going to be an historian working with "people" I needed no statistics classes.

Every day of my adult life I wish I had taken the course back then. I have had to work with statistics so much as a part of my job that I will actually be taking a class in the spring as a student, despite having my PhD.

I think it will be difficult to grasp many concepts, and like most disciplines, learning the seemingly endless vocabulary will be a challenge. I think this alone is why so many students roll their eyes. In so many other courses, they have a frame of reference, either from a high school course they took, or from broader life. P-values and confidence intervals simply don't make it into the causal lexicon.

I really enjoy statistics. I got 94% (A+) in my grade 12 data management class, which is basically an introduction to statistics.