As we click, flip, and scroll through hundreds of sites and channels, cruising for our daily dose of e-thrills, it’s easy to forget there’s a beautiful, wild, creative universe right in our backyards.

I had the chance to experience a tiny part of that universe on a recent Saturday afternoon, when a couple of friends, Yolanda and Monika, asked me if I wanted to join them to monitor the water quality of the stream that runs in back of our house.

If the title of this post made you think you’d be reading about Abraham Lincoln and Tyra Banks, you’re only half right.

In this multi-part transcript from a hypothetical trial, we find Lionel Loosefit standing before a court and facing charges of gross statistical misconduct when performing a regression analysis. Day one featured testimony by the prosecutor; during day two, the evidence is put to the test during reexamination.

Whenever something suddenly fell apart, my grandfather used to exclaim, “Down goes the meathouse!” I don’t know where that expression came from—as a child I often pictured a flabby house of raw meat caving in on itself. This was decades before Lady Gaga made wearing raw meat dresses... uh... fashionable?

My grandfather’s expression still pops into my head when I think about a probit analysis. A probit study is based on one very simple premise: Everything has its breaking point.