Answer to Question #180603 in Statistics and Probability for Agust D

Question

Reflect on the quotation below. Write in a brief paragraph.

"My statistics are facts, and your facts are just statistics" - Jonathan Lynn

Answer 1

Solution:

Facts are complete and unbiased enough to tell us something relevant to understanding the past or predicting the future. They do not care about our goals. They are indifferent to our politics. They are not trying to tell our story. They do not have quarterly earnings expectations to meet.

A statistic is just a number. And numbers are as easily manipulatable, incomplete, and misleading as words are. But they are more dangerous than words, because numbers are associated with math, and math is associated with fact.