Genius has as many components as the mind itself. - Stephen Jay Gould

Geology gave us the immensity of time and taught us how little of it our own species has occupied.

Very little comes easily to our poor, benighted species (the first creature, after all, to experiment with the novel evolutionary inventions of self-conscious philosophy and art). Even the most “obvious,” “accurate,” and “natural” style of thinking or drawing must be regulated by history and won by struggle. Solutions must therefore arise within a social context and record the complex interactions of mind and environment that define the possibility of human improvement.

This is a personal story of statistics, properly interpreted, as profoundly nurturant and life-giving.