The trial of Lucy Letby has shocked British statisticians
And shown that many Britons are woefully ignorant of statistics
It was “feeble”. It was “very unsatisfactory”. It was, in short, “terrible”. If you wish to annoy a statistician, ask them about the trial of Lucy Letby, a British nurse. Statisticians will, typically, take no view whatsoever on the guilt or otherwise of Ms Letby, who in August 2023 was found guilty of murdering seven very young babies in a hospital near Liverpool between 2015 and 2016, and given 15 life sentences without the chance of parole.
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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Two cultures”
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