Statistical Inferences and Creative Thinking

Introduction

The field of statistics provides us with concepts and tools for giving meaning to naturally observed or experimentally generated data on objects that may be of interest to us. In dealing with people, for example, we may handle data on gender distribution, age, height, weight, income, religion, family size, measurements in psychology such reaction time, indicators of intelligence, aptitude test scores, and so on.

The values these data and measurements seem to follow some natural distribution. This tendency in nature was highlighted in a statistical classic, “On the Laws of Inheritance in Man,” published in Biometrika in 1903. Given the weight of a person, for example, we may wonder whether this weight is below or above the mean for the population. How do we determine the mean weight for a population? Certainly not by asking everyone's weight. This is neither advisable nor feasible. Through, statistical methods we can come up with a reasonably good estimate for the mean value of the entire population by properly selecting a small sample from the population. Statistics also provides us with the means to discover patterns in data, to draw inferences from data, and to predict the outcome of events.

The use of statistics is important in view of our need to understand all kinds of data being collected and disseminated in public. Often the public statements are based on quantitative data. Without some knowledge of statistics, and an appreciation of its underlying principles, it would be difficult to understand or question these statements.

Statistics may be defined as the science of data. There are some outstanding recent works sponsored and published by American Statistical Association (ASA) on the role and history of statistics as a key area of human scientific endeavor. There are two articles to be noted in particular i.e. “Shaping Statistic for Success in the 21st Century” [Ketterning, 1997], and “A Voyage of Discovery” [Billard, 1997]. The first work presents insights into statistics and the current state of its development. The second work presents historical developments in statistics as a science, based on a review of key articles published over one hundred years, from 1839 to 1939, in the Journal of the American Statistical Association (JASA). Both of these works are available as full-length articles on the World Wide Web at www.amstat.org, the ASA web site.

1. Introduction

2. Creative Thinking and Statistics

3. Raw Data And Data Aggregations By Categories

4. Measures Of Central Tendency

5. Assessing Sample Values On The Basis Of Sample Statistics

6. Conclusions

7. Cited References