First day back in the classroom, teaching genetics, and I speculate for a bit about why so many people find the subject difficult. I’ve had smart students who struggled with the concepts. I think the answer is that many people don’t get the whole idea of chance and probability and the statistical nature of inheritance.
The autofocus on my camera was a bit goofy. Someday I’ll get this all figured out.
“The autofocus on my camera was a bit goofy. Someday I’ll get this all figured out.”
Well, you do have a partner.*
That’s the point; sometimes assistant, sometimes assisted.
Mutual thingies like that.
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* Mary Mary (not Contrary, of course)
I remember back when I was in grad school working on a MSEE. There were only two required courses. One was on random variables and noise. That stuff turns up everywhere it seems.
Ooo, you might be interested in two citations.
Andrew Gelman and Deborah Nolan, “You Can Load a Die, But You Can’t Bias a Coin,” The American Statistician 56, no. 4 (2002): 308–11, https://doi.org/10.1198/000313002605
Gelman and Nolan describe a class activity where they ask students to create a biased die and coin. The students have no problem with the former, but none have yet to pull off the latter. That pairs well with:
Matthew P. A. Clark and Brian D. Westerberg, “How Random Is the Toss of a Coin?,” Holiday Review, CMAJ 181, no. 12 (2009): E306–8, https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.091733
A prof asked 13 residents to induce bias towards heads in a coin toss, via how they flipped it. All of them were successful, with half achieving statistical significance.
I had no problem with the variable focus because I am old and variable focus is a part of life.
I was a wise talk.
I know that many people don’t have any understanding of how statistics work, much less probability. It is annoyingly common for me to hear people say they support things 1000%, or some other nonsensical percentage.
I think many people find the idea that chance and randomness are part of evolution and human genetics disquieting.
Hj@3–
Not entirely convinced by the second paper. There’s a lot of crucial design description missing. I know it’s not meant to be a Big Serious Paper, but still. Plus, it fails to understand why coin tossing for sports (home captain tosses the coin, away captain calls the toss once it’s in midair) makes it a very good randomiser. Even if the coin-tosser can bias the toss, the caller gets to randomise the advantage. Worse, if the coin-tosser’s bias is predictable, then it gives the advantage to the caller.
Tethys@5–
I take most statements about “giving 110%” or “1000%” to be hyperbole, but it’s certainly true that probabilistic errors are commonplace, including in respected scientific journals.
People do tend to have a pretty poor innate sense of probability. Unless you get a lot of training and actively focus on using the skill. It’s a hard one to teach people
Having taught university-level Mendelian genetics for some years, I found that students had a lot of trouble understanding what gametes would come from a double heterozygote, such as AB//ab. One is tempted to think that some of the gametes will be Aa or Bb, rather than just the four types AB, Ab, aB, and ab. I was unhappy that students could not understand that, even though they had been exposed to Mendelian genetics in high school. But then I remembered that it took me being exposed to it about three different times before I understood gamete segregation from double heterozygotes.
(Oh, and I advise having a cold drink of water, juice, or pop to delay the onset of hoarseness.)
I should have said, a cold drink to keep with you and sip on.
I suspect Mendelian genetics is eminently teachable via computer gaming.