Numeracy: Understanding what’s behind the numbers

Tuesday, October 15th, 2024 // Forbes Avenue

Back in July 2021, we caught up with Professor Brian Junker of Carnegie Mellon’s department of Statistics and Data Science. He has since retired from the CMU faculty; but the points he made in our discussion still ring true in 2024.

Professor Junker talked candidly about the need for all of us to improve our “Numeracy” — the numeric equivalent of literacy — so we can understand what’s behind the numbers people talk about in politics, medicine, investments, news reports. We must understand the assumptions behind the numbers to make sense of different claims about “what the data means.” Since Professor Junker and his interviewer first met as musicians, the conversation went on a very interesting tangent about how music informs his professional life. A thought-provoking conversation!

Listen to the interview: Prof. Brian Junker

Credits:
Richard Gordon, host, researcher, audio engineer, audio editor
Recorded July 22, 2021; Forbes Avenue debut October 15, 2024