Chapter 1

Descriptive Statistics

Introduction

A simple fact of life is that most phenomena have a random component. Human beings have a natural height that is different than the natural height of a dog or a tree. However, human beings are not all of the same height. The usually small range is governed by random error. For example, the range of adult human height is roughly 52–75 inches. This does not mean that 100% of all mankind are in this range. The small portions that are outside this range are considered outliers. Summarizing the height of human beings is very common in statistics. However, in science, it is helpful to provide the associated level of confidence in a statement. For example, it is important to state that a particular percentage, ...

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