Andrew Lang's description of one individuals misuse of 'collected, classified, and interpreted quantitive data' is amusing, but just how imaginative should a statisticians interpretation be? In the increasingly complex society of today the ability to spot trends or determine which way public taste is swinging can be of great importance to industry. Similarly, it is of prime interest to the Government how the population is distributed geographically, the numbers of people within each age group, etc. The required data are easy to obtain; the Government takes a census or uses figures already to hand in their various departments. Industry carries out market surveys. The collected data is of little use in its raw form and further manipulation, using statistical techniques, is necessary before meaningful comparisons or conclusions can be made. Statistics therefore play an important part in our lives, since it is through their use that government and commerce decide what we, the consumers, want (or need as they prefer to put it). There is a widespread mistrust of statistics and statisticians. It is often said there are "lies, damned lies, and statistics". This lack of trust is understandable. All too often a set of data seems to yield contradictory results. A typical example is the continuing argument between health agencies and tobacco companies as to the efficacy of smoking in causing lung cancer. Similar contradictions arise during wage negotiations when it would appear that at the end of the day both sides have each won a resounding victory. Cynics may feel that one side (or more probably both) is cheating. However, this is not necessarily the case and both sides may have been quite
honest in their interpretation of the results. The key word is "interpretation" and it is this area where the unwary may be easily confused. The most often used statistic, and I sometimes think the least understood, is the Average. [INCOMPLET] Computing Today | ★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ DOWNLOAD ★ |
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CPCrulez[Content Management System] v8.7-desktop/c
Page créée en 045 millisecondes et consultée 472 foisL'Amstrad CPC est une machine 8 bits à base d'un Z80 à 4MHz. Le premier de la gamme fut le CPC 464 en 1984, équipé d'un lecteur de cassettes intégré il se plaçait en concurrent du Commodore C64 beaucoup plus compliqué à utiliser et plus cher. Ce fut un réel succès et sorti cette même années le CPC 664 équipé d'un lecteur de disquettes trois pouces intégré. Sa vie fut de courte durée puisqu'en 1985 il fut remplacé par le CPC 6128 qui était plus compact, plus soigné et surtout qui avait 128Ko de RAM au lieu de 64Ko. |
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