Keep your eyes and ears open as you read or listen to the ne

Keep your eyes and ears open as you read or listen to the news this week. Find/discover an example of statistics in the news to discuss the following statement that represents one of the objectives of statistics analysis:

“Statistics helps us make decisions based on data analysis.” Briefly discuss how the news item or article meets this objective. Cite your references.

Solution

\"A study conducted by U.S. researchers Patrick K. McCluskey and Matthew Kulick found that nearly 90 percent of the citizens participating in their study were willing to sign a petition to support an outright ban on the use of Dihydrogen Monoxide in the United States.\"

http://www.dhmo.org/

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If you are a marketing person, you will want to know that certain colors are more attractive to women than men. Or that your brand of product is primarilly purchased by young people under the age of 30.

The most common kind of statistical inference is hypothesis testing. Statistical data analysis allows us to use mathematical principles to decide how likely it is that our sample results match our hypothesis about a population. For example, if our research hypothesis is that the coin is not fair, but is actually biased towards heads - we can use principles of statistics to tell us how likely it is that we could get our sample results even if the coin were fair after all (null hypothesis).

If the probability of getting our sample results from a fair coin is very low, we feel confident in rejecting the null hypothesis (that the coin is fair). Even though we can\'t say for sure (because even a fair coin could produce our sample results), we can say that the results of our study support the hypothesis that the coin is indeed biased.

When we make this decision based on statistical data analysis, this is statistical inference.

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Entitled \"Statistics show Floridians love their libraries\" It discusses the popularity of libraries in Florida, specifically analyzing how the investment in running libraries is worth it.

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http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/hpi/house-...

With these house price stats people in different areas might decide to buy or sell a house because the market is either rising or falling or where it\'s stable they might hold on and see which way it\'s going to go.

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http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/1500.0chapter42010