Who are you?
Well pals, my name is Timothy Wiemken. I am an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the University of Louisville Division of Infectious Diseases and am the Assistant Director of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Louisville Clinical and Translational Research Support Center. Fancy titles huh? Does it mean anything to you? Probably not. Check out our center at www.ctrsc.net.
Why should I listen to what you have to say - I mean, the blog is pirate stats???
Well har-de-har smarty pants. I learned statistical computing using SPSS and Epi Info a number of years ago. I was never quite pleased with either - There were too many clicks in SPSS, and Epi Info - well, 'nuff said. After a while of using SPSS, I learned the SPSS syntax, which eliminated the clicking and re-clicking, but it just was not as flexible as I wanted it to be. I later learned SAS when I was getting my master's at Saint Louis University from an amazing professor, Dr. Q. John Fu. I didn't get proficient in SAS until I used it for a number of years at my first job in infectious diseases, as a data analyst. SAS was great, but it, like SPSS and most other packages, was expensive. SAS is also not particularly flexible unless you are awesome at Macro coding... which I am not. R (AKA: ARRRRR, hence the pirate stats), seemed to eliminate these issues. R is the most flexible of all of the softwares capable of statistical computing (of those I have used), and is completely free. Download it at www.r-project.org.
Why do I need a tutorial on R?
The R language is more of a computer science language, whereas SAS and SPSS are more biostatistical. At least this is what my computer science pal tells me. I am definitely not a computer scientist (not because I don't want to be... mainly because I don't want to go to school again. One PhD is enough). After thinking like SPSS and SAS for so long, it was difficult to begin to use R. One of my friends, Dr. Guy Brock at the UofL School of Public Health was instrumental in getting me started. Dr. Rob Kelley, my computer science pal (also an Assistant Prof in Infectious Diseases) has also been extremely helpful in allowing me to think more like a computer scientist. Thinking differently is critical to begin to use R - so those of you who already know another language may find it difficult to switch (as I did).
So can you actually teach me how to use R?
Maybe - particularly if you aren't a total moron. Actually, I think anyone can learn. How my blog may be different than others is as follows 1) I am not a computer scientist and tend to think more like an epidemiologist -- I dont think theoretically and focus on strictly practical applications of biostatistics and data management, 2) I was proficient in other languages (SPSS and SAS) before and had to re-learn how to think biostats for the R language -- I can provide some comparisons to other packages which I think makes it easier to switch (it did for me), 3) most of the other blogs are overly complicated -- for practical application, you dont have to know all this extra crap -- I will focus on simple application to get you through what you will actually need to use R for any basic to intermediate biostatistical analysis (99% of the application that anyone actually reading this blog will want to see).
So take that -- read on. If you like it, let me know. If you don't, go to Facebook to complain like the rest of the world. If you like it, enjoy being able to use R -- it is totally sweet, free, and amazing. Did I mention it was sweet? You may get diabetes from it.
--- Timothy Wiemken, PhD MPH CIC (certified in infection control and epidemiology)
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