(Edited by C. Braun)
Statistics, stats, do you know stats is a palindrome? Do you know the odds of a word being a palindrome? Pretty low, you have better odds of getting struck by lightning twice on the day you graduate high school. Statistics is a big left turn from the standard world of math, we take a step aside from solving functions or graphing polynomials to start using the thing between our ears, our brain. Statistics requires so much intuition that oftentimes it can stump the basic mathematicians, but this intuition and knowledge is very heavily used and influenced in the decisions that run our society! From operating businesses, to running schools, to even deciding who to start in your Fantasy Football lineups, statistics is the perfect answer to those that love to retort, “When am I going to use this!?”
Often times with Statistics, we very commonly compare. We love to compare to see improvement, with how much of a difference is being made. In most cases when people are gaining an understanding from a first glance, they tend not to read fully, mostly because a good amount of people can be “too lazy” to read the information that is given. Statisticians came up with a great solution for this…displaying their data. People love to see the images, pie charts, and graphs! The shape, measure, and distribution of the graphs can certainly paint a picture of our data!
With statistics, we can strengthen our main thesis and most often back up our hypothesis with strong data that will help convince the audience of what we are portraying, but unfortunately in modern times this has been heavily exploited. In recent news we hear many examples of how things can be regarded as “fake news” or heavily skewed/influenced to make false statements, but unfortunately that is done with advanced methodology of statistical analysis. In my Statistics classes, we go over how we can re-express data or misconstrue our displays to deceive the audience. Unfortunately, this has been heavily done, leading a lot of people to misunderstand what is actually true and what isn't.
Pause for reflection…
So how do we deal with this? The same way we deal with a good amount of other major social issues and battles today: become more informed. Statistics not only addresses the “when will I ever use this” crowd, but it also is a very powerful tool that our society harnesses to strengthen its knowledge of the world. Without Statistics, we would have no true measurement, making our lives obsolete. Statistics is a very important part of our society, and lately it has unfortunately become a tool that has been unethically utilized in some cases. However, learning and understanding its concepts can become a very powerful asset for us to utilize! Probability, experiments, measurements! The world of Statistics is truly bountiful! The information you harness from it can greatly impact and change your life, career, business, and teams.
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