by Ken Smauthi

Created on: December 05, 2008   Last Updated: February 15, 2012

Today we have achieved a level of access to information that is far above and beyond anything experienced before in human history. The Internet has become an incredibly vast repository of all areas of human knowledge, and it's all available simply for the asking. All you must do is type in the information you want to search for, hit enter, and within seconds you are presented with thousands of results.

It's amazing, it's unprecedented, and as a society, we're still catching up with it's implications.

Thinking critically about information in general, and statistics in particular, has always been an important skill. But in today's society where information of all sorts assaults us from every corner, it's absolutely critical. And the sad fact is that we're not preparing our children to be able to make sense of it all.

An understanding of statistics should be taught to children at least as early as secondary school, and perhaps even earlier. It does not need to be overly technical at first. At the college level, courses in statistics are taught with an eye towards calculating and memorizing complex mathematical formulas. This kind of knowledge is important, but it leaves a lot of the basics of understanding statistics unsaid. These basics can not only help students prepare for more advanced courses in statistics, but will also help them make better sense of the world around them.

With just some basic knowledge, students can start to ask questions and dissect data in order to gain a fuller understanding of what is being said. How many times, after all, do debates over issues break down into both sides throwing competing statistics at one another? Is there not a way, after all, to improve the quality of these discussions? Can we not break down each piece of information further and analyse them in a way that provokes a deeper discussion rather than the dead end of competing diametrically opposite claims and counter claims? An understanding of statistics can provide the solution.

In the late 90s, when I was in college, I heard of a professor who refused to let his students use the Internet to research their projects. I was very glad not to have this professor, as the Internet was almost my sole resource for any research project. The reason this professor gave for his policy was that the Internet was an unreliable source of information.

Of course, he had a point. And while I would point out that people can and have written books containing all sorts of nonsense, I've

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