Statistical Analysis of Biological Data
As David Salsburg wrote in "The Lady Tasting Tea: how statistics revolutionized science in the twentieth century", biology has changed into a quantitative science that relies on statistical methods for setting confidence levels on the conclusions we make and for assessing how well our data fit our conceptual models.
In this course, we will focus on statistical literacy -- not mathematics, and by doing so, we will discuss and explore how biologists "do" science: how we ask questions, design experiments, analyze data, and draw conclusions. We will use a modern statistical program that is free and widely used world-wide, rather than some unique, expensive program that you may never have access to again.
Because our goal is to take a tour of statistics and start practicing statistical thinking, this course is surprisingly fun.