Introduction to Biostatistics with JMP

Chapter 4: Describing Populations

The mathematician, carried along on his flood of symbols, dealing apparently with purely formal truths, may still reach results of endless importance for our description of the physical universe.

Karl Pearson

Introduction

Population Description

Central Tendency (Location)

Sample Variation

Frequency Distributions

The Most Common Distribution – Normal or Gaussian

Two Other Biologically Relevant Distributions

The JMP Distribution Platform

An Example: Big Class.jmp

Parametric versus Nonparametric and “Normal Enough”

Introduction

Statistics in general can be categorized by two basic goals. When sitting at your desk with a set of numbers before your eyes, you either want to describe the population(s), or you want ...