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B.G. Lindsay 858.2 The first statistical seedsSo now let me set the scene for my first contacts with statistics. I startedout with a mathematics degree from University of Oregon in 1969, but I hadvirtually no statistics training there. I then went to Yale graduate school inmathematics. I only lasted one year because I was drafted into the US militaryin 1970. I had no probability or statistics at Yale, rather a shame given theeminent faculty members there.I took my first basic statistics course while in the US Coast Guard, about1972. It was a night course at Berkeley, taught by an adjunct. Frankly, likemany other “Stat 100’s,” it was not very inspiring. My impression from it wasthat statistics was a collection of strange recipes that had been generated bya foreign culture. Surely this was not mathematics, but what was it?!On the plus side, however, I did my first real statistical analysis duringthose Coast Guard years. I had done poorly in an Armed Services exam thatthe military used to screen applicants to their training schools. The particularexam involved repeatedly looking at two long numbers side by side and sayingif they were identical or not. (I suspect my poor performance on that exam isnow reflected in my poor memory of phone numbers.)As a result of my exam results, I had to get a waiver to get into YeomanSchool. Yeomen are the clerk typists of the Navy and Coast Guard. In the endI did very well in the school, and was convinced that the screening exam wasworthless. And I knew that I would need statistics to prove it! My opportunityarose because I had been assigned to the same Yeoman School as its secretary.I analyzed the school’s data to show that there was zero correlation betweenthe screening exam result and performance in the school. However my letterto the Coast Guard Commandant was never answered.ImustconfessthatatthistimeIwasstillalongwaysfrombeingafanofstatistics. It seemed like a messy version of mathematics constructed from avariety of disconnected black boxes. I could calculate a correlation, and lookup a significance level, but why? The fact that there were multiple ways tomeasure correlation only made it less satisfactory. But the seeds of changehad been planted in me.8.3 Graduate trainingBy the time I left the Coast Guard in 1974, I had decided to drop out of Yaleand out of pure mathematics. I wanted something closer to life on this planet.This led me to switch to graduate school at University of Washington (UW).It was an excellent choice.