1. J. Gould, in 1982, faced a harsh diagnosis of terminal abdominal cancer. He researched and learned the median life-expectancy for a person given a like diagnosis, and initially was discouraged
(as many cancer diagnosed patients are on receiving their diagnoses).
Though as an evolutionary biologist, another “hard reality” of statistics emerged that allowed him to craft and adopt a statistical strategy for dealing with the reality of the median life-
expectancy for similar diagnoses.
What was the statistical strategy Gould adopted? (1 point; a succinct phrase or sentence, please):
2a. (1/2 pt.) What can you glean as the shape of the distribution Gould found himself up against on receiving his diagnosis? (normal, symmetricaVskewed—left-hand, or right-hand).
b) (1/2 pt) What details in Gould’s description of the distribution allow you to know this shape?
3. (1 pt.) using Gould’s example as a model, describe one of the prominent parameters (shape, spread, center) of a distribution you, a friend, or a family member has had to confront in their
lifetimes; one, whose parameters you have learned by “coming up against” that distribution, much as Gould did.