1.2 Generating Data from Models

One core skill of a practicing statistician is to be able to generate random data from a model. Most of the models you will encounter in this course are referred to as probability models. That is just a fancy way of associating probabilities with different events, or outcomes, in a model.

For example, the model of flipping a “fair” coin is a probability model. There are two events/outcomes in the model: heads and tails. Each of these outcomes has a probability of 0.5 associated with it. (Note that although we could say 50%, that probabilities are on the scale from 0 to 1, so are defined using decimal values.)

In the in-class activity, Pet factories, you will create several probability models to generate data.