Statistics as a Way of Thinking: History, Ideas, and Evidence

1 credits · Undergraduate

This course introduces statistics and probability through their historical development, emphasizing not only how statistical methods work but why they were invented. Students encounter foundational quantitative ideas—such as uncertainty, averages, variation, and the central limit theorem—as they originally emerged from real scientific and social problems. Working with small, historically authentic datasets, the course builds quantitative reasoning skills and shows how these ideas scale to modern settings involving large and complex data, providing a foundation for understanding contemporary statistics, data science, and artificial intelligence.