Packet 1: Bonus 9
Answer the following about influential critiques of statistical inference, the process of using data to learn properties of an underlying model, for 10 points each.
[10m] Ziliak and McCloskey’s The Cult of Statistical Significance notes that even Student disliked his namesake test for not measuring this company’s “pecuniary advantage.” Student worked at this company for most of his career.
ANSWER: Guinness Brewery [accept St. James's Gate Brewery]
[10h] Leo Breiman critiqued the focus on inference in his influential paper “Statistical Modeling,” whose subtitle references this essay. This essay mocks “highly educated” gatherings where none present can explain the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
ANSWER: “The Two Cultures” (by C. P. Snow) [accept “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution”] (Breiman’s paper is often likewise called “The Two Cultures.”)
[10e] In a popular critique of inference dogma, David Freedman praised the qualitative, “shoe leather” approach of John Snow, who helped found epidemiology by studying an 1854 outbreak of this disease in London.
ANSWER: cholera [or Vibrio cholerae]
<TM, Other Academic> | NAFTA-Packet-1
| Heard | PPB | E % | M % | H % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 41 | 20.98 | 100% | 68% | 42% |
Conversion
| Team | Opponent | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Total | Parts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abbas I founded the Abbasids | UBC B | 0 | 0 | 10 | 10 | E |
| The Unbearable Heaviness of History Players | UBC A | 10 | 0 | 10 | 20 | ME |
Summary
| Tournament | Edition | Match | Heard | PPB | E % | M % | H % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 NAFTA at Stanford | 01/17/2026 | ✓ | 4 | 27.50 | 100% | 100% | 75% |
| 2026 NAFTA at UBC | 01/17/2026 | ✓ | 2 | 15.00 | 100% | 50% | 0% |
| 2025 NAFTA Online | 02/14/2026 | ✓ | 4 | 25.00 | 100% | 75% | 75% |
| 2026 NAFTA at Vanderbilt | 02/14/2026 | ✓ | 3 | 13.33 | 100% | 33% | 0% |
| 2025 NAFTA at Toronto | 09/13/2025 | ✓ | 4 | 22.50 | 100% | 75% | 50% |
| 2025 NAFTA at Maryland | 09/27/2025 | ✓ | 5 | 14.00 | 100% | 20% | 20% |
| 2025 NAFTA at Harvard | 10/04/2025 | ✓ | 3 | 26.67 | 100% | 100% | 67% |
| 2025 NAFTA at Oxford | 10/11/2025 | ✓ | 3 | 16.67 | 100% | 33% | 33% |
| 2025 NAFTA at Chicago | 11/08/2025 | ✓ | 6 | 25.00 | 100% | 100% | 50% |
| 2025 NAFTA at Columbia | 11/08/2025 | ✓ | 5 | 20.00 | 100% | 80% | 20% |
| 2025 NAFTA at Richmond | 12/20/2025 | ✓ | 2 | 20.00 | 100% | 50% | 50% |