It is not best that we should all think alike;
it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races. - Mark Twain
"I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson," said he. "When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to justify the hansom."
Excellent!" I cried.
"Elementary," said he. "It is one of those instances where the reasoner can produce an effect which seems remarkable to his neighbor, because the latter has missed the one little point which is the basis of the deduction. The same may be said, my dear fellow, for the effect of some of these little sketches of yours, which is entirely meretricious, depending as it does upon your retaining in your own hands some factors in the problem which are never imparted to the reader.
-The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893)
-Watson and Holmes in "The Crooked Man" (Doubleday p. 412)
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle deftly uses words to describe the art of uncovering the layers of deception. The same art that we struggle to master using formal definitions and tools in the name of Statistics. Observations relate to data collection, and classification relates to sorting or cleaning of the data. Then he uses assertions (statements) to denote the equations. Then he uses conditional probability to dissect and eliminate clusters, to improve the chance of getting the right answer.
The culprit ( ? is it) hides underneath numerous layers of apparent realities (?); it is our job to peel those layers and dig deeper to get the truth. The cause for some products' popularity is buried in the vastness of the sales data we can collect. Smart ones can figure it out quicker using systematic approaches and tools.
What I want to learn
Statistics is a powerful tool for understanding and making sense of data. For my research on AI, I intend to strengthen my understanding of theory of learning, how much of information from past can help to what accuracy about future predictions, heuristics vs optimal tradeoff and optimization methods.
Week 0 - Activity 0
Created this sub-page for Statistics2.
Week 0 - Activity 1
Searching for a data set...........................