Blog - Sharon Lohr

My favorite statistical podcast is actually about virology.

The NOVA episode “Athens: Birthplace of Democracy,” which aired on Arizona PBS on July 1, 2026, stated: “For the ancient Greeks, true democracy only worked through the extensive use of random selection.”

In June 1826, Thomas Jefferson was too ill to accept the Washington DC mayor’s invitation to participate in the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the Declaration of Independence.

My previous post discussed the performance of the artificial intelligence (AI) interface Gemini on undergraduate statistics problems.

I began teaching statistics at a time of intense debates about how to use technology (then rapidly changing) in the classroom.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released their 2024 crime statistics in September.

Merriam-Webster editors have chosen slop to be the 2025 Word of the Year, defining it as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.”

My previous post discussed 1918 vaccine studies, whose reliance on anecdotal evidence led to erroneous determinations of effectiveness.

I like mystery novels, and I especially like mysteries that get the science right.

On August 12, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released July 2025 inflation statistics: “In July, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers rose 0.2 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 2.7 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adju…

Benjamin Franklin’s formal education ended at age 10 and he frequently lamented his lack of mathematical training.

I’ve written about opera characters and Jane Austen characters who would have been good statisticians, and on this Star Wars Day let’s visit some characters from Episodes I through VI who, in an alternative galaxy far far away, might have opted for a stat…

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Part 1 discussed two recent polls that gave different answers for how often people say they attend religious services.

I knew there were serious problems with at least one of the statistics as soon as I skimmed the newspaper article.

It’s time for my annual update on crime statistics, following the September release of 2023 numbers by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).

I recently finished preparing Powerpoint slides for a talk titled “Ahead of the Trends: J.N.K.

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In 2015, 25-year-old graduate student Joy Buolamwini had an unnerving experience when using face-tracking software for a class project.

My post for this week can be found in the May 8, 2024 issue of the Ahwatukee Foothills News (p. 33).