As discussed last month, for the next two months we’ll be interspersing regular blog posts with seminar-speaker-bracket showdowns.

Mon: Deciding the ultimate seminar speaker: The rules

Tues: Plato (1) vs. Henny Youngman

Wed: The plagiarist next door

Mark Twain (4) vs. L. Ron Hubbard

Thurs: Why I keep talking about “generalizing from sample to population”

James Joyce (3) vs. Mary Baker Eddy

Fri: Statistical analysis recapitulates the development of statistical methods

Mohammad (2) vs. Ed McMahon

Sat: How a clever analysis of health survey data became transformed into bogus feel-good medical advice

Miguel de Cervantes (2) vs. Joan Crawford

Sun: Sorry, but I’m with Richard Ford on this one

Henry David Thoreau (3) vs. Charles Manson