Hello (New World!),
My name is Edwin, I’m a 22 year-old French student in
applied mathematics. In particular, I study probability, statistics and risk theory. We
learn interesting things but there is still one question I feel stupid about:
Is statistics, actually, useful? I mean not theoretically but in the real life.
Many friends of mine asked me this, and I vainly struggle in answering with
understandable and cogent examples. I can’t get rid of the stereotypes such as
the over optimistic forecasts of GDP gross given by
government neither of the very easy statistics which are about collecting data
rather than proper data analyses.
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Because, mathematics should never be like that... (source:http://lovestats.wordpress.com/dman/) |
This question is the reason of this blog, I would like to
explain by examples how statistics and probability could offer a useful
perception of our environment. Indeed, according to the Oxford Dictionary,
perception is the ability to see, hear, or become aware
of something through the senses, or in a second meaning, the way in which
something is regarded, understood, or interpreted. This is how probability and
statistics are useful. They give a perception of our environment, which might
be wrong, as well as our sight can suffer from an optical illusion, but the
perception may help us to understand and become aware of phenomena of our
environment.
To answer “the” question I will try
to use examples as easy as possible so that not only the conclusions but also
the process are understandable. As you will certainly see, I like sport,
finance and risk issues, and I will use many examples from these areas to
answer the question. I will use the software R to illustrate the different
topics. Although, I’m not a great programmer, feel free to use my programs if
you think they could be useful. They are
certainly not as efficient as possible and, again, feel free to comment any of
my programs if you have any ideas to improve the program or the method.
Finally, before blogging for the
first time in my life, I’d like to thank all the people who settle in my mind
the unfathomable question of the utility of statistics. In particular Claire,
Justine, Arthur, Clement and Rudy (even though the three last ones certainly know better
than I do how useful is statistics) for the countless, long and unfinished
delicious discussions we had about statistics and probability. Claude for his
unconditional but fair question: “You like mathematics, but what kind of work
can you do with mathematics?” and many other people, who, I am sure will
recognize they have left their print on this blog.
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