[kordlessagain]

Try filtering them on their specific ability to visualize things. My neighbor was 80+ year old math guy who could see graphs of equations in his head.

My hypothesis is that good stats people probably don't visualize (Aphant) or visualize very specific types of data in a unique way. Without visualization, people tend to fall back to logical thinking - or emotional thinking, depending.

For example, I have a friend who can look at 2D seismic data and see what the underground formation looks like in his mind, in 3D.

[whoisburbansky]

The person you are replying to seemed to be complaining about their lack of programming ability, not statistical ability, so how would this help in their situation?

[CinchWrench]

Yup, I think I and that child are talking past each other. :-(

It's good though because they raise some really valid points about the importance of intuition. I joke with my colleagues that all we're doing is encoding data as a hilbert space and slapping an algorithm on it, but that elides the fact that intuition like the child is talking about is important for knowing how to build that hilbert space.