Statistical Reasoning in Everyday Life :: essays research papers

Statistical Reasoning in Everyday feelThis chapter taught me the importance of understanding statistical data and how to evaluate it with common sense. around everyday we atomic number 18 subjected to statistical data in newspapers and on TV. My prevalent reaction was to accept those statistics as being valid. Which I think is a fair assessment for intimately people. However, reading this chapter opens my eyes to the fact that statistical data burn be very misleading. It shows how data can be skewed to support a certain groups agenda. Although most statistical data presented may not seem to affect us personally in our daily lives, it can however ingest an impact. For example, statistics can influence the way people vote on certain issues.In evaluating statistical data one thing to consider is the measure that is used. By understanding the different statistical measurement tools and how they differ from one another, it is attaincapable to judge whether a statistical graph can be judge at guinea pig value. A good example is using the base to depict averages. This was demonstrated by using the mean as a measure of determining the distribution of incomes. The mean income depicted was, $70,000 per year. At face value, it looks as though the prove population enjoys a rather spirited income. However, upon seeing individual salaries, it becomes obvious that only a few salaries are responsible for the high average income as depicted by the mean. The majority of the salaries were well under the $70,000 average. Therefore, the mean distributed income of $70,000 was at best misleading. By too looking at the median and mode measures of the income distributions, one has a clearer moving-picture show of the actual income distributions. Because this data contained extreme values, a standard deviation kink up would have given better representation of salary distribution and would have highlighted the salaries at the high level and how they skewed the mean valu e.Another of the essence(predicate) concept outlined in this chapter is the correlation coefficient. The importance of this is being able to understand to what extent two things actually relate to each other. By having this awareness, we are better able to understand and function in the mankind we live in.I learned some key factors in make the determination whether statistical data is reliable Consider the population sample and if it is representative of the inferences that the data is claiming.