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Role of Statistics

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International Encyclopedia of Statistical Science

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“Modern statistics, like telescopes, microscopes, X-rays, radar, and medical scans, enables us to see things invisible to the naked eye. Modern statistics enables us to see through the mists and confusion of the world about us, to grasp the underlying reality.”

David Hand

Introduction

Despite some recent vigorously promulgated criticisms of statistical methods (particularly significance tests), methodological limitations, and misuses of statistics (see Ziliak and McCloskey 2008; Hurlbert and Lombardi 2009; Marcus 2009; especially Siegfried 2010, among others), we are the ones still “living in the golden age of statistics” (Efron 1998).

Statistics play a vital role in collecting, summarizing, analyzing, and interpreting data in almost all branches of science such as agriculture, astronomy, biology, business, chemistry, economics, education, engineering, genetics, government, medicine, pharmacy, physics, psychology, sociology, etc. Statistical concepts and principles are ubiquitous in...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. St. Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indiesat Trinidad, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago

    Ashok Sahai (Professor) & Miodrag Lovric (Professor)

Authors
  1. Ashok Sahai
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  2. Miodrag Lovric
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Statistics and Informatics, Faculty of Economics, University of Kragujevac, City of Kragujevac, Serbia

    Miodrag Lovric

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© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Sahai, A., Lovric, M. (2011). Role of Statistics. In: Lovric, M. (eds) International Encyclopedia of Statistical Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04898-2_640

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