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 The
collection processing, interpretation and presentation of
numerical data all belong to the domain of statistics. These
tasks include the calculation of football goals averages,
collecting data on births and deaths, evaluating the
effectiveness of commercial products, and forecasting the
weather. Statistical information is presented to us constantly
on radio and television. Our enthusiasm for statistical facts is
encouraged by national newspapers such as the daily journals and
magazines.
The
word "statistics" is used in several ways. It can refer not only
to the mere tabulation of numeric information, as in reports of
stock market transactions, but also to the body of techniques
used in processing or analyzing data.
The
word "statistician" is also used in several ways. The term can
be applied to those who simply collect information, as well as
to those who prepare analyses or interpretations, and it is also
applied to scholars who develop the mathematical theory on which
statistics is based.
In
Sections 1.1 and 1.2, we discuss the recent growth of statistics
and its ever widening range of applications. In Section 1.3 we
explain the distinction between the two major branches of
statistics, descriptive statistical inference, and in the
optional Section 1.4 we discuss the nature of various kinds of
data and in connection with this warn the reader against the
indiscriminate mathematical treatment of statistical data.
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Introduction