In quantitative methods text-books for the social and behavioral
sciences one constantly sees the equation which describes the pdf for
both normal distributions in general and the standard normal
distribution. I have never seen any basic warning that this
"description" of the standard normal distribution is only the density
function and not a computing formula of any kind. I'd hate to think
these authors are unable to articulate a context for this equation.
On the other hand, I've run into a published psych phd who refused to
acknowlege a computing typo in a paper- he didn't say it, but he had
the fact that no one does the math (obviously including himself) on
his side.
It seems to me that the lack of theoretical fundamentals in the vast
majority of social/behavioral science students' introductions to
quantitative work (what they come to know as "plugging and chugging")
is fairly damning. I myself, trying to turn it around with
probability theory and real analysis fairly late in the game, notice I
have some terrible mathematical habits and badly under-developed
facilities. Considering how many of us wind up as data analysts, it'd
be great if some form of competent intermediate mathematical
instruction accompanied the inference and descriptives- it isn't like
we can count on undergraduate calculus or numerical analysis
instruction in math departments to go out of its way to be too
relevant to our needs.
Anyway, integrating the normal distribution function sure is a bear,
huh?
.
.
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