By Madison Miller · Contributing Writer
ELOQUI
I like statistics, and no, I’m not mentally ill.
But if you (understandably) wanted to make sure I’m not mentally ill, you’d use the Diagnostic StatisticalManual of Mental Disorders.
If statistics forms the foundation for the book that guides diagnosis and treatment for mental health crises, I’d say it’s pretty great.
And I am not the only one who loves statistics. From 2015 to 2024, the estimated number of students taking AP Calculus tests fell by 1% (from 415,000 to 410,000), whereas the number of students taking the AP Statistics exam increased by 28% (from 195,000 to 250,000). High schools are gradually placing more value in statistical thinking over other types of math. Why the shift?
R-squared, hypothesis testing, random assignment and p-values. Some might wince with painful memories just reading that and prefer to keep such terms far from their awareness. Those dull concepts from stats classes, they think, shouldn’t touch the average person’s reality anyway.
But statistics interlocks with reality often. It’s why our college is still open, as accreditation requires a lot of stats. It’s how you know you’re supposed to get eight hours of sleep, how TikTok shortens attention spans and if you have a mental disorder.
Statistics has woven itself into much of society’s most valuable knowledge; it forms the threads of all psychological research and understanding.
Statistics is an inherently human math. Every data point in statistics reflects a person, a tiny piece of their life put into a number (at least in psychological research). Statistics takes the randomness and chaos of human behaviors and quantifies it, so we can gain insights about the epitome of God’s creation.
“You’re reducing people to numbers, wow!” That’s what my roommate cried out when I first proposed this. But I’m proposing the opposite. I’m elevating the numbers to people and giving the math its due respect.
When I took Advanced Statistics, I had a data analysis project. Dr. Welton gave the class an expansive (and de-identified) data set on Christian youths’ answers to a lengthy questionnaire, and we could do anything we desired with the numbers. It was a daunting prospect at first, but I decided to investigate whether kids’ closeness to their fathers predicted their closeness to God (because it could help with the conceptualization of the Heavenly Father).
Someone could get addicted to inputting variables into statistics software, hitting “run” and getting an output. The brain begs to know how the numbers turned out. Are they statistically significant? Are the results what I expected? I promise it’s a thrill. I missed a poetry recitation meeting with Dr. Bilbro because I was having too much fun in SPSS.
The results were not what I expected: kids’ closeness to their mothers predicted better than closeness to fathers whether they were close to God. There are several theoretical means of interpreting these results, but the point is that at the end of my time with statistics, I had a better grasp of human functioning. I discovered a tiny piece of human experience.
Other kinds of math have different goals. At the end of my pre-calculus homework, I had a page of abstract numbers. Other maths might reveal truths about machines or the laws of the universe, which are extraordinary and helpful, but people are the single part of creation made in God’s image. That’s why stats is my favorite math, as it’s the math of people.
I know I couldn’t even type this article without all the mathematical advancements that led to the creation of the computer, so other maths have a definite, essential purpose. There’s a reason, however, that more students are taking the AP Statistics exam.
Only statistics provides insight into what parenting style creates the happiest people, or what impact social media has on developing brains or what programs help the most people recover from drug addiction. Statistics gives pointers in suicide prevention and was revolutionary in the early stages of cancer research. It saves lives and can improve them incredibly: according to statistics, people of faith are happier.
I don’t expect statistics to be everyone’s favorite math, and it doesn’t need to be. It does not, however, deserve all the slander and dread I hear about it. Students could go into a stats class with a little less boredom and a little more appreciation, and that way, I might find a p-value below 0.05 for the title’s alternative hypothesis.
