The Importance of Statistics

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Whether or not people notice the importance of statistics, people is using them in their everyday life. Statistics have been more and more important for different cohorts of people from a farmer to an academician and a politician. For example, Cambodian famers produce an average of three tons or rice per hectare, about eighty per cent of Cambodian population is a farmer, at least two million people support party A, and so on. According to the University of Melbourne, statistics are about to make conclusive estimates about the present or to predict the future (The University of Melbourne, 2009). Because of their significance, statistics are used for different purposes. Statistics are not always trustable, yet they depend on their reliable factors such as sample, data collection methods and sources of data. This essay will discuss how people can use statistics to present facts or to delude others. Then, it will discuss some of the criteria for a reliable statistic interpretation.

Researchers, professionals and others use statistics to prove their claims or findings. Even though statistics are not an absolute fact because the conclusion is mostly drawn from a sample group – representative of a specific population subjected to the research, it is commonly used as the basis of decision making or alternating choices in daily living, studies, works, scientific research, politics and other planning. The inventor of a documentary film called “An inconvenient truth”, Mr. Al Gore, for instance, in his campaign to educate people about the climate change, used statistics to alert people that everyone on earth is polluting the environment and should participate in solving the problem. He collected data from many different countries with an in...

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...rue and lie. It depends on how it is used, collected and analyzed. Therefore, readers should understand what reliable statistics are. Yet, statistics are very important for researchers, scientists, students, employers and individuals to make decisions as well as to evidence any claims or scientific theories.

Works Cited

Braid, J. H. (2003). How statistics can lie? Retrieved February 04, 2011, from N Turfgrass:

http://turf.unl.edu/extpresentationspdf/BairdStats.pdf

International Republican Institute. (2010). Survey of Cambodian Public Opinion. Phnom Penh.

Rosenberg, M. (2010, 11 17). China's one child policy. Retrieved 01 31, 2011, from About.com:

http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/onechild.htm

The University of Melbourne. (2009). What is statistics? Retrieved 01 30, 2011, from Statistical

Consulting Center: www.scc.ms.unimelb.edu.au/

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