Anti-Climacus

QUESTION: I'm in my second semester of stats, and I must say, my complaints about last term (all just and true, down to the least of them), I'm actually learning quite a lot, and I think as a consequence, I'm a better reader of all kinds of empirical work (same goes with the effect my game theory class is having). It seems to me that part of the benefit of going through the process is that the expectations are exactly the same of me as for the people who are likely to need to use stats for their work. I think all the people who've encouraged me to keep going in this direction have done so on the premise that it's good to learn statistics the way people who use statistics learn it. So far so good.

But what about a hypothetical course like "statistics for political theorists," where I wouldn't have to actually do any problems, or learn the more complicated concepts, or master anything that wasn't likely to come up in reading a standard IR paper? I'd learn something, sure, but it'd be a more superficial kind of knowledge, no? One that would leave me less prepared as a political scientist to deal with empirical work in a way capable of doing justice to it, right? Just curious.