What is Statistics?
December 3, 2012
When many people hear the word “statistics,” they think of either sports-related numbers or the college class they took and barely passed. While statistics can be thought about in these terms, there is more to the relationship between you and statistics than you probably imagine.
So, what is statistics? Several informal definitions are offered in the bookA Career in Statistics: Beyond the Numbersby Gerald Hahn and Necip Doganaksoy:
- The science of learning from (or making sense out of) data
- The theory and methods of extracting information from observational data for solving real-world problems
- The science of uncertainty
- The quintessential interdisciplinary science
- The art of telling a story with [numerical] data
Statistics is used around the world by governments, political parties, civil servants, financial companies, opinion-polling firms, social researchers, news organizations, and so much more.
Statisticians, the scientists who collect and analyze data, work in many areas that touch your life, including the following:
- Medicine
- Economics
- Agriculture
- Business
- Law enforcement
- Weather forecasting
Statistics is becoming more critical as academia, businesses, and governments come to rely on data-driven decisions, greatly expanding the demand for statisticians.