Week 4, Day 2

Lab 2

Revisions Due Friday

Please make sure you submitted reflections with your revisions! If there are not revisions present when I start grading them on Saturday morning, your revisions are not eligible to be regraded.

Statistical Critique

Common Mistakes

“What variables go with each aesthetic?”

  • I need you to be specific about what variable is being mapped to each component of the plot

“Careful! Aesthetics are places where variables are being included on the plot, which is different from stylistic decisions made by the illustrator. Which of these aesthetics are associated with variables?”

  • Things like axis titles, grid lines, and annotations are stylistic decisions made by the plot creator. Aesthetics are places where variables are being included in the plot.

Statistical Critique Revisions

Are due on Wednesday, May 7.

Next week the focus will be to get your Midterm Project first draft out the door, so we will postpone the revision deadline until the following week.

You are welcome to complete your revisions before then!

The History of Regression

Least Squares

Published in 1805 by Legendre

An image of Adrien-Marie Legendre, a famous mathematician from early in the 18th century.

and Gauss in 1809

An image of Carl Friedrich Gauss, a famous mathematician from late in the 18th century.

Used to determine, from astronomical observations, the orbits of bodies about the Sun.

“regression”

A picture of Francis Galton in a suit and tie. He is an old, unattractive man.

  • Coined by Francis Galton in the 19th century

  • Described a biological phenomenon

    • Heights of children of tall parents tend to be tall, but shorter than their parents
    • “regression to the mean”

A “polymath”

A image taken from one of Galton's papers on correlation. The image displays a table of numbers and a diagram of computing relationships between these numbers.

  • In Statistics, Galton (1822–1911) is a towering figure.

  • He invented standard deviation, correlation, linear regression, ANOVA

  • Galton’s developments and discoveries were fueled in large part by his fascination with the science of heredity.

The Invention of Eugenics

  • Based on Greek eugenes, meaning “well-born”

  • The science of heredity could help humanity better itself through breeding.

  • Galton served as founding president of the British Eugenics Society

“What nature does blindly, slowly and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly. As it lies within his power, so it becomes his duty to work in that direction.”

Francis Galton

And then it spread…

An image of Adolf Hitler in front of his book Mein Kampf.

  • Mein Kampf references the ideas of British and American eugenicists

  • Declared non-Aryan races inferior

  • Believed Germans should do everything possible to make sure their gene pool stayed “pure”

But wasn’t that a long time ago?

An image of an indigenous woman holding a globe. The image says 'Women of All Red Noations with the abbreviation WARN. WARN referrs to a Native American women's organization founded in 1974 which advocated for Native American civil and reproductive rights, particularly focusing on issues affecting women.

Between 1970 and 1976 between 25% and 50% of Native Americans were sterilized, many without consent

An image of protesters holding a 'Free Britney' sign and a 'Freedom for Britney 2020' sign. These signs represent the #FreeBritney movement, a social media campaign that advocated for Britney Spears to be released from her court-ordered conservatorship which had begun in 2008. The movement gained traction in 2019 and 2020, fueled by fan concerns about the conservatorship and its implications for Spears's well-being and autonomy. Ultimately, the movement played a significant role in raising awareness about the conservatorship and contributing to its eventual termination in 2021.

In 1927 the US Supreme Court ruled that sterilization of the handicapped did not violate the Constitution.


In 1957 “conservatorship” was introduced “to avoid the stigma of incompetency”

Would you be in this class?

Is your skin white?

Are you blonde?

Do you have blue eyes?

Were your ancestors poor?

Are you Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Tao, or Jewish?

Do you identify as LGBTQIQ+?

More Information

Lab 4

Today’s Data

Data includes lake name, dates of freeze-up and thaw, and duration of ice cover of lakes in the Madison, WI area. Ice cover duration is the number of days that a lake is frozen, excluding periods where the lake thaws before refreezing again. Lakes Monona and Wingra are considered to be frozen if they are completely ice covered, while Lake Mendota is considered to be frozen if there is ice from Picnic Point to Maple Bluff and more than 50% of the lake is covered by ice.

An ariel photo of Madison, Wisconsin. The image shows the two lakes to the north and south of Madison and the medium sized skyline of buildings.

Research Question



Has the duration of ice cover changed over the last 175 years?

Data Layout

lakeid ice_on ice_off ice_duration year
Lake Mendota 1880-11-23 1881-05-03 161 1880
Lake Mendota 1932-12-10 1933-04-04 115 1932
Lake Mendota 2003-01-04 2003-04-03 89 2002
Lake Mendota 1953-12-30 1954-03-25 85 1953
Lake Monona 1963-12-18 1964-03-19 92 1963
Lake Monona 1989-12-07 1990-03-15 98 1989
Lake Monona 1985-12-06 1986-03-29 113 1985
Lake Monona 1996-12-20 1997-03-26 96 1996

Recording the year of the winter

How is the year variable related to the ice_on and ice_off variables?

Accessing Lab 3

Step 1: Both members of your group need to join your group workspace (link posted in the Announcements of your group)

Roles

The person whose birthday is closest to January 1 will act as the Recorder for your group (this week).

Step 2: The Recorder follows these instructions to copy the Lab 2 project into your group’s workspace

Step 3: Both members open the Lab 3 assignment in your group workspace!

Step 4: Follow the final instructions to activate collaborative editing in the document.