LINKS TO CARTOONS AND COMICS

XKCD
XKCD logo

This webcomic is drawn by Randall Munroe Munroe and often contains jokes that involve statistical topics. Randall is very widely read scientifically so this comic also has many jokes about computer science, astronomy, and mathematics. Most comics involve stick figures talking with one another, but some of his comics are actually data figures presented in a humorous or insightful way.

He has also written three books, one is a collection of some of his comics and two ("What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions" and "Thing Explainer") are more in-depth about various interesting topics. You can find them on the books page.

CLICK HERE or on the image to go to www.xkcd.com.

SMBC logo
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

This webcomic is drawn by Zach Weinersmith and often contains jokes that involve academic or statistical topics. SMBC's comics often involve humans, aliens, angels or robots discussing something in a humorous way that uses logic to come to some kind of unexpected yet strangely logical conclusion. Zach Weinersmith is also the creator of BAHFest, the Festival of Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses, a series of mock conferences where people give presentations that likewise attempt to use logic to reach humorous conclusions.

He has also written several books which collect many of some of his comics as well as books that look at other ideas more in-depth. You can find them on the books page.

CLICK HERE or on the image to go to www.smbc-comics.com.

SMBC logo
Science Cartoons Plus

Before the internet expanded the diversity of comic artists, Sidney Harris made a name for himself drawing science cartoons. Going all the way back to 1955 he drew comics that were printed in a variety of magazines and scientific journals. His most well-known comic has a man at a blackboard with a ton of math leading to some text that says "then a miracle occurs" with more math afterwards - that comic was cropped for his website logo which is what we show here.

Harris maintains an old-school website that shows some of his cartoons and has links to buy his books. He has collected his cartoons into 20 books published over the years, you can find them on his site or check out the books page for the complete list.

CLICK HERE or on the image to go to www.sciencecartoonsplus.com, Harris' website.

LINKS TO STATISTICS SOFTWARE

The R Project for Statistical Computing
R logo

The R software program was created in 1995 and is becoming a widely used standard across many fields. R is free and runs on all operating systems. There is also a large community of researchers who are constantly writing new modules and adding new methods - whatever your specialty, you're sure to find a useful set of tools in R.

R logo
R itself is the program that does the analyses, but most people also use a second program to act as a GUI or "face" of R and make it easier to use. RStudio is the most popular of these.


SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences)
R logo

SPSS was created in 1968 as a software program to assist with the analysis of data by mainframe computers. In 2010 it became a part of IBM and its suite of computer software products.

When compared to SAS (see below), SPSS is considered easier to learn and use, but it lacks some of the more sophisticated tools that SAS has. Like SAS (and unlike R), SPSS is not cheap for the private user, although most good universities will make it available to students and faculty.


SAS (Statistical Analysis System)
R logo

SAS was created in 1966 by NIH-funded researchers at North Carolina State University as a software program to assist with the analysis of agricultural data. In 1976 it became a standalone entity with the creation of the SAS Institute. Over the years it added many new features and analyses to its repertoire.

When compared to SAS (see above), SAS is considered more powerful, but not as easy to learn as SPSS. Like SPSS (and unlike R), SAS is not cheap for the private user, although most good universities will make it available to students and faculty. There is a program to provide it to students for free).



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