Ireneo Funes

Ireneo Funes is the protagonist of Jorge Borges’ fantasy story “Funes the Memorious”. In the story, Funes was portrayed as a man with the inconceivable ability of truthfully memorizing the tiniest details of every single day of life he has ever lived. Inspite of such abundance of memories, Funes was incapable of making any sense out of them. In his forthcoming book “Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom” (2015, Harvard University Press), the statistician and historian Stephen Stigler cited Funes’ story and called him “Big Data without Statistics”. Inspired by Stigler’s book as one of the primary readings, we will explore seven statistical principles, examining their epistemological ancestries and implications on large-scale statistical inference in the current day. These insights, condensed from centuries of statistical research, are fundamental to modern statistical reasoning, and are crucial in preventing ourselves from becoming the Funes of the 21st century. This seminar is particularly suited for those whose happiness lies in understanding the philosophical underpinnings of quantitative thinking under uncertainty. Class discussions will be led by student groups, covering the historical account, the modern applications and controversies of the idea, and supplemented by selected secondary readings. As a summary to the discussions over the semester, the class will also collaboratively prepare a review article for publication.