Parting Thoughts

David Davis-Van Atta, Director of Institutional Research at Vassar College (ddavisva@vassar.edu) kindly submitted the following piece of humor:

The Statisticians’ Trick

Some statisticians and epidemiologists are going by train to the sea for a day at the beach. The epidemiologists dutifully buy a ticket each, while the statisticians buy only one between them. When the ticket taker comes around, the statisticians quickly get into a toilet and pass out the ticket under the door. Duly fooled, the inspector punches the ticket, passes it back under the door, and goes on. The epidemiologists take close note of this, are very impressed, and decide that they should do this too. So, on the way home, the epidemiologists buy one ticket between them, just as they saw the statisticians doing. However, to their amazement, the statisticians buy no tickets at all! When the ticket taker begins his rounds, the epidemiologists all get into the toilet with their ticket. As soon as they do, one of the statisticians knocks on the door and the epidemiologists duly pass out the ticket. The statisticians take the epidemiologists' ticket and retire to another toilet to await the ticket collector.

MORAL: Never imagine that you can replicate a trick only because you saw a statistician do it once.

Thanks for sending in this joke, David! Reader contributions of Parting Thoughts are most welcome. Send them to Marne Einarson (mke3@cornell.edu).