In this episode I discuss the great, classic article "The Median Isn't the Message" by Stephen Jay Gould. We delve into the article, its meaning, and lots of the depth and breadth we can get out of it. It should be read and studied by every statistics teacher and statistics student -- and everyone else, it is so full of lessons.Contact Michael:1. Email: reasonrx@aol.com2. Gold Academy: https://www.goldams.com 3. Total Human Fitness: https://total-human-fitness.com4. Cypress Creek Ecological Restoration Project: https://ccerp.org5. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-gold-2883921/ 6. Twitter/Instagram: EpistemeRxNotes.1. "The Median Isn't the Message" by Stephen Jay Gouldhttps://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0003ms2. Left skewed vs. right skewedi. https://www.statology.org/left-skewed-vs-right-skewed/ii. https://www.cuemath.com/data/right-skewed-histogram/3. An article on Aristotle and science (high school- or college-level reading): https://galileoandeinstein.phys.virginia.edu/lectures/aristot2.html“To summarize: Aristotle’s philosophy laid out an approach to the investigation of all natural phenomena, to determine form by detailed, systematic work, and thus arrive at final causes. His logical method of argument gave a framework for putting knowledge together, and deducing new results. He created what amounted to a fully-fledged professional scientific enterprise, on a scale comparable to a modern university science department. It must be admitted that some of his work - unfortunately, some of the physics - was not up to his usual high standards. He evidently found falling stones a lot less interesting than living creatures. Yet the sheer scale of his enterprise, unmatched in antiquity and for centuries to come, gave an authority to all his writings.“It is perhaps worth reiterating the difference between Plato and Aristotle, who agreed with each other that the world is the product of rational design, that the philosopher investigates the form and the universal, and that the only true knowledge is that which is irrefutable. The essential difference between them was that Plato felt mathematical reasoning could arrive at the truth with little outside help, but Aristotle believed detailed empirical investigations of nature were essential if progress was to be made in understanding the natural world.”4. The BBC provides a great, honest tribute to Aristotle for his work in science and biology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN8ortM4M3oThe BBC program is also here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e12pbSHrzAs&list=PL2VcIjTwDHoLScpo2c26t-x3EdTP6WepL&index=15. From: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/02/the-lagoon-armand-marie-leroi-aristotle-reviewExcerpt 1. "The Greeks are famous, perhaps notorious, for casting their science whole, from first principles, without troubling to examine the natural world it sought to explain. But Aristotle changed everything, providing lengthy accounts of fish and fowl, their lives, courtships, kinds, anatomies, functions, distribution and habits. They were often erroneous, but what sets Aristotle apart is his workmanlike attitude. One gets the impression of a practical man, given to neither the remote and crystalline idealism of his predecessors, nor the flights of fancy of later natural historians such as Pliny the Elder."Excerpt 2. "Darwin knew almost nothing of Aristotle until 1882, when William Ogle, physician and classicist, sent him a copy of The Parts of Animals he'd just translated. In his note of thanks, Darwin wrote: 'From quotations which I had seen I had a high notion of Aristotle's merits, but I had not the most remote notion of what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle.' “6. See also this article by Dr. James Lennox: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-biology/7. A quote about Galileo that discusses the importance of Aristotle, reasoning, and a correct view of logic.In the book Galileo Galilei – When the World Stood Still, Atle Naess wrote:“Galileo’s radical renewal sprang, nevertheless, from the Aristotelian mind set, as it was taught at the Jesuits’ Collegio Romano: human reason has a basic ability to recognize and understand the objects registered by the senses. The objects are real. They have properties that can be perceived, and then ‘further processed’ according to logical rules. These logical concepts are also real (if not in exactly the same way as the physical objects).”8. A quote of Galileo himself that shows the importance of Aristotle to science and all human reasoning, and that identifies a basic principle of reason and logic: they are based on the evidence of the senses. "I should even think that in making the celestial material alterable, I contradict the doctrine of Aristotle much less than do those people who still want to keep the sky inalterable; for I am sure that he ...
