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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

Bad analogy. Being able to understand statistics at an everyday usage level is the equivalent of being able to read and write. Understanding calculus needed for statistics is the equivalent of needing to understand Latin or comparative linguistics. Noble and useful pursuits for sure, but you can get far with an educated society that just knows how to read and write even if they're iffy on the Latin roots of it all.

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This is quite clearly false. Most people on the planet have zero to little understanding of statistics. They get by just fine. The field of Calculus is actually fairly simple compared to stats. By and large calculus is the study of the slope of a line, and the area under the curve.

Statistics is more complicated philosophically and computationally, as you do in fact need calculus to do statistics, since a fundamental tool of statistics is evaluating the area under a variety of distribution curves.

You've misunderstood my post. I'm not arguing that needing to understand statistics is the same as needing to be able to read and write; I was responding to a post that was arguing that teaching stats without the underpinnings of calculus is like a society that is barely literate.

> Statistics is more complicated philosophically and computationally, as you do in fact need calculus to do statistics

This is just fundamentally false, as there are many statistical concepts and introductory statistics courses (given at some of the most renowned universities in the world) that can be taught without an underpinning of calculus. It's like arguing that you can't teach a programming class until someone understands digital logic design.

Again, philosophically and computationally, statistics is more complicated.

And again, you do need calculus to do statistics. Maybe you're saying: "If someone does the calculus part for you, you can use this one equation to solve this one question."

That's akin to calling a spelling test literature. You are confusing practice with knowledge. Anyone can bang on a drum. That does not make them a drummer.

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