Statistics

In his TEDx performance titled "Why you should love statistics," in Exeter, United Kingdom,  Alan Smith discusses the function of statistics in society. Those who were watching Smith speak were, as he claims, young students of the University of Exeter; the mean age for those living in Exeter during Smith's live performance were in the twenties.

To his listeners, Smith explains his relationship with math since undergraduate school. Smith predicts that his professors would agree with how poorly he would perform in the college course of statistics. He felt this way until he graduated form undergraduate school, when he fell in love with statistics: the field of mathematics that explains us and has no definite answer - no right or wrong answer.

According to Smith, we should love statistics because it shows us who we are as a civilization, and it clarifies assumptions and guesses. Smith gives examples of how useful statistics are. He shows to his viewers results of surveys he's asked to others. For example, one survey asked in Britain, for every one hundred people, how many believe at least one teenage girl, in the UK, gets pregnant per year. This question was asked to a British audience of high school females, and they managed to answer an average of fifteen British people. The fact is, only 0.6 out of one hundred people of the UK believe that at least one teenage girl gets pregnant per year.

Another survey was asked to Saudi Arabians asking: for every one hundred adults in Saudi Arabia, how many are obese? The average answer twenty-eight. The true answer is seventy-one.

This comes to show how inaccurate our assumptions are. With correct information, debates and discussions can be smooth, accurate, and reasonable. Statistics helps us find the true answer, and that's why we should love it.



- M. Haroon