Misuses of Statistics

• This is somewhat Cultural
• It is not statistics that are the problem.
• First, from the last section, was a proper sample taken?
  • You really need this information to make a decision about the results.
• The misuse of words
  • We will come up with at least four words that describe "average"
  • mean, median, mode, midrange
  • And there are others.
• Or the use of ambiguous words
  • What is the "Biggest" store in the world?
  • Who has the largest profit?
• Draw generalized conclusions from a limited experiment/sample
  • If something kills germs in the lab, is that the same as in the home?
• Or provide only selected information.
  • Mention how many new customers a bank had, not mentioning how many left in the same period.
• Graphs and charts are particularly problematic.
  • Showing the graph in "condensed" form
  • 
  • Pie charts with more than 100%
  • 
  • Incorrect scaling of volume, 2d or 3d.
  • 
• The population, in thousands, of Honolulu is shown in the following table. Draw a graph to
  • Show the population is changing rapidly
  • Show the population is stable.

  Year	Population
  1980	365.0
  1990	365.2
  2000	371.7
  2010	371.7