Poetry, ink drawings, and Eastern philosophy are the unusual base ingredients for new ways of presenting statistics developed by a Tufts alum.
Dana Keller's recently published book, "The Tao of Statistics: A Path to Understanding (With No Math)," fuses Eastern philosophy with statistics, using oriental ink drawings, poems and real-life examples to help reinforce statistical concepts.
The impulse to write the book - which Keller (LA '74) will be signing at the Tufts Bookstore from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Friday - came after Keller's experiences lecturing at conferences.
He had to explain how statistical results relate to Medicare and Medicaid policy "in plain English" to general audiences.
"Few people in the audience cared about the statistics - what they cared about was the policy relevance," Keller said.
Keller noticed a lack of written statistical resources that did not focus heavily on computation. He could not find a book that contextualized statistics without mathematics.
"Statistics without a context are about as useful as a burnt match," Keller said. "[The book is] focused toward people who do not consider themselves mathematically oriented, but still want or need to understand what statistics mean."
He gave education policy, health care, economics, and marketing as fields where an understanding of statistics is necessary.
The "tao" portion of the book's title came partly from Keller's long term personal interest in Eastern philosophy. Keller traveled and taught in China after a few of his doctoral students expressed interest in setting up an English school there.
"Eastern philosophy tends to use both sides of the brain; it tends to think of things from all sides," Keller said. "The tao of statistics is the way or the path of statistics, not the math of statistics that can be found elsewhere."
Statistics courses do not traditionally incorporate this balance. "We teach it backwards compared to the way that many people learn: traditional statistics courses present the math and have students do brain-breaking exercises first," Keller said. "All students learn is that statistics is a real drag. They're not of a mindset where they can easily read equations the way they can read a newspaper."
"We've all done the left-brain stuff," Keller said of traditional approaches to statistics. "If we could bring in poetry, artwork, simple text, and real life examples, then we're bringing in the other side."
A "sumi-e" artist, a specialized form of ink painting, worked with Keller to create the book's 60 images which reinforce concepts presented in the text.
One common feature of statistics books is notably absent. "There are no charts or graphs of anything," Keller said.
Sixty poems appear in the text. The poems, which also reiterate the statistical concepts, were all written by Keller, a first-time poet.
Keller calls is approach to statistics "more holistic" than traditional models.
The first draft of the text took only nine days to complete. The initial writing, however, was followed by four months of revising and refining. He is now working on a companion book on research methodology, tentatively titled "The Tao of Research: A Path to Validity."
In addition to a foundation in statistics and a degree in sociology, Keller came away from the Hill with an appreciation for the accomplishments of people. "It's all normal people who do great things, so normal people can do just about anything when they set their minds to it," he said.
Keller points to Tufts professor Alan Orenstein - who also took an alternative approach to statistics - as a personal influence. "He tried to instill a gut or intuitive understanding of what statistics are beyond the math," Keller said.
