Review Of Erika Don Juan's 'Prostitute Of Mathematics'

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Summary 1 Statistics, the prostitute of mathematics? Erika Don Juan's talk explores the complex relationship between statistics and ethics. Starting from the anecdote of a professor who classified statistics as "the prostitute of mathematics", this is where we realize that statistics makes this a reflective process beyond an academic concept. Statistics is not only transversal to all disciplines, since it is required for physics, chemistry, medicine and all these sciences that require it for their scientific research process and decision making, therefore, the author reflects on cases of scientific and academic fraud, where statistics are used in a manipulative way to obtain desired results, likewise, she expresses and argues that statistics in itself is not problematic, …show more content…

Therefore, it is an important tool for understanding data and making decisions, even if they are not perfect. Author Walter Sosa argues with examples, such as when measuring unemployment. Statistics can still provide us with valuable information about reality, even if it does not accurately represent the situation. Tolerance for error allows us to put statistics into practice in everyday situations since, despite the inherent inaccuracy of statistics, this discipline offers us a useful and practical perspective on reality, and allows us to better understand the world around us, even if we don't have access to perfect information. Summary 3: Do you want to predict the future? Use data The author begins his speech with a story about a friend who sought out a magician to read his fortune. However, he maintains that predicting the future is not as easy as it seems, and that most predictions are wrong. Therefore, he maintains that algorithms can now be used to make predictions with a high degree of accuracy, so he presents several examples of how algorithms are used to predict the

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