Should We Trust the Numbers? Good Question.

Iowa State is holding a symposium on Sept. 11 titled: Should We Trust the Numbers? A Workshop on Philosophy, Mathematics and Statistics in the Court of Law. What a just flat out awesome idea for a symposium. While the program is a bit philosophical for my tastes, the question nevertheless is extremely important and one that scholars across the country are wrestling with as more and more legal scholars are also being trained as researchers (ex: myself, Scott B., Neal, Scott M., Jon Becker, and that's just the tip of the educational iceberg that my readers are likely to know). What impact that mixing of traditional research with legal decision-making is likely to have is anyone's guess, but certainly one could argue that a very large percentage of the most important cases related to education in the last-half century have used research data to support the legal arguments (Brown v. Board, all the ed. finance cases, etc.). So, all of you Midwesterners that can make it to Ames, should attend and let's hope we see more of these types of formal discussions in the future.