The Thurber Family

Marleen's Report Card

Marleen's final exam grade for "Health and Aging" just came in, good result as you can see. Since all the kids' report cards are accessible to their parents, it's only fair that Mom's college report card be published for all the world to see. This wasn't a statistics class, but a quick course in statistics is in order here, given the odd juxtaposition of grades. The chances that any two consecutive grades, on a scale of 1 to 100, would be the same are 1 in 10,000. Not good, but fortunes have been made on slimmer odds. The chances, however, that all six grades would be the same are 100 to the sixth power, which is 1 trillion, a number so large that only the U.S. government has any idea what it means. This being BYU, we can only call this a miracle of the highest order, and be thankful that the six identical lotto balls popping out of the swirling hopper showed 97 instead of 7. Other less pious folk would unpolitely refer to this statistical anomaly in the context of my recent rantings about the statistics of evolutionary theory -- I prefer to think of it as intelligent design. Around here, our solution is to throw a party, which means that Camille and Austin go to homecoming (Austin's limo got cancelled, he is reduced to begging a ride just like going to seminary), Marleen and Christine go to Dallas, and Dad fertilizes the lawn.

P.S. Betting is now open on Marleen's grade for the course, which should be published shortly. Before you throw all your money away betting the obvious, keep in mind that the chances of a 97 are no better than the chances of a 7. In predicting the next step in a statistical progression, the results of previous coin tosses are irrelevant.