Timeline for How to describe statistics in one sentence?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 8, 2015 at 0:16 | comment | added | Sympa | An observer visiting this site would derive that my answer is the worst one... even worse than someone who made a joke about the question. The very best answers invariably just state statistics are just methods to better understand data. However, the latter do not tell you much if anything about the field of statistics. That's especially true if you were to address such answers to outsiders. On the other hand, my answer states something precise and descriptive about the field that is readily comprehensible by outsiders. That should count for something. | |
| Mar 6, 2015 at 23:19 | comment | added | whuber♦ | The hover text over the downvote arrow states "this answer is not useful." I find it interesting--and therefore not unuseful--because it is thought-provoking, but I have not upvoted it for several reasons. The first is the assertion that stats is a "mathematical science": that comes uncomfortably close to the misconception (especially among certain mathematicians) that stats is just a branch of mathematics. The second is that it seems only to characterize two-sample hypothesis testing, which is a very narrow (albeit pervasive) part of statistics. | |
| Mar 6, 2015 at 21:42 | comment | added | Sympa | In each of those cases, the answer to those questions has a strong element of statistical significance and whether what you are looking at in any shape or form is different vs. what could occur by sheer randomness. To most of us a negative vote means an explicitly wrong answer. I don't see how my answer could be categorized as such. | |
| Mar 6, 2015 at 0:11 | comment | added | rolando2 | please consider these types of questions that one often seeks to answer using statistics: What is the shape of this distribution? What is the nature of the relationship between these 2 variables? How can these many variables be grouped so that we can see the common issues/themes/topics/dimensions? How can these many cases be grouped so that we can see the common types/profiles? What is the best way to describe this web of relationships with an eye toward causality? What captures the trend of this variable over time? What is the best way to forecast future values? | |
| Mar 6, 2015 at 0:03 | comment | added | Sympa | I see it differently. Ultimately, whether you are conducting hypothesis testing, regression modeling, or any other estimation you most always measure whether the difference between your estimate vs a naïve model, or difference in observations are statistically significant or not. My sentence captures the essence of statistical significance vs. randomness. If others agree, can you give me some up votes, so my comment that is easily justifiable is not treated as a plain wrong answer just because of one individual's subjective interpretation of narrowness. | |
| Mar 5, 2015 at 23:43 | comment | added | rolando2 | Describes a narrow subset of what the field is. | |
| S Mar 5, 2015 at 23:19 | history | answered | Sympa | CC BY-SA 3.0 | |
| S Mar 5, 2015 at 23:19 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Sympa |