Mark Muldoon Reader, Department of Mathematics Teaching: Schedule, Autumn 2023 The links below lead to online materials for units where I am teaching this term Machine Learning & Stats I (DATA70121: MSc Data Science) Room: Room 2.130, Alan Turing Building (number 46 on this campus map) Phone: (0161) 306 3646 (44 161 306 3646   from overseas) Email: M.Muldoon@Manchester.ac.uk Pronouns: he/him/his

There’s what you can count, and what sense you can make of what you count, and the lessons to be learned from that are not always what they seem. In a previous life, I used to write an arts column for the Daily Telegraph. In that capacity I once had lunch with the editor, Charles Moore, who said something I’ve never forgotten. He was talking about market research, and when I said something sensitive and thoughtful about it being mostly bollocks, he replied: “No, it can be very helpful, but the thing you have to remember is that it is Delphic. It answers the question you ask, but it doesn’t tell you what to do.”

From a review of a collection of books about the use of statistics, by John Lanchester.

Autumn 2023