Terrible Advice From a Great Scientist

Shipud writes "E.O. Wilson is the renowned father of sociobiology, a professor (emeritus) at Harvard, two time pulitzer prize winner, and a popularizer of science. In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Wilson provides controversial advice to aspiring young scientists. Wilson claims that math literacy is not essential, and that scientific models in biology, intuitively generated, can later be formalized by a specialized statistician. One blogger calls out Wilson on his article, arguing that knowing mathematics is essential to generating models, and that lacking what Darwin called the "extra sense" is essentially limiting to any scientist."

Understanding statistics ...

[PPH]

... is necessary for good experiment design. Trying to fix a poorly conceived experiment or bad data after the fact is like trying to cure diarrhea by messing with the bathroom plumbing.