Misuses of Statistics Essay Example for Free

Misuses of Statistics Essay While Statistics can also be misused in many ways such as using not representative samples, small sample size, ambiguous averages and dispersions, detached facts, implied connections, wrong and misleading graphs, wrong use of statistical techniques, serious violation of assumption behind the statistical techniques and faculty surveys, we should also realize that Statistical literacy is not a skill that is widely accepted as necessary in education. Therefore a lot of misuse of statistics is not intentional, just uninformed. But that does not mitigate its danger when misused because Statistical techniques are many times misused, to sell products that don’t work; to prove something that is not really true, to get the attention of public by evoking fear and shock. Statistics has numerous uses. It is difficult to find a field in which statistics is not used. Statistics plays integral part in many disciplines, and do not take reported relationships at their face value, especially if you cannot see a direct, causal link between them. There may be a common-sense reason why they are linked through a third, unreported variable or other intended or unintended connections. Going through exercises 1 through 10 on page 810, I decided to do exercise number 4. The question reads â€Å"In many ads for weigh loss products, under the product claim and in small print, the following statement is made: â€Å"These results are not typical.† What does this say about the product being advertised?† It is intriguing but rather serious when media plays with our emotion just to get our attention in whatever ways they can. Both print and electronic media have created a means of satisfying our emotional instabilities by coming up with advertisements that will capture our attentions. Weigh loss products and program are few of the many that have been bombarding the airwaves. Many at times I pondered when watching television or listening to radio commercial, whether these are really delivering what they are saying that can. I have deliberately changed my channels when I am watching television and a commercial come on the television. In this assignment, I am going to synthesized question number 4. I am going to keenly look the small prints that say â€Å"These results are not typical† What does this say about the product being advertised? I think there are two sides to this, one is the legal obligations that they will be face with if they fail what they promised, the other is nothing is typical. What works for you might not work for me. We are all different and unique in our own ways. We all have different method of losing weight. What might work for one person is not necessarily going to work for you, what you arent guaranteed is to lose what that that person lost in the ads. They are only giving us the best results they have gotten from their products and it does not mean that it might work for you or me. There is no 100% guarantee in this process. The next question that I am going to comment will be number 16. â€Å"Do you think that it is not important to give extra tutoring to students who are not failing?† To answer this question in a survey, you must understand what they are asking for. This is very confusion question. Double negative can be confusing, which might lead to an incorrect response. I think because each student is different, each should be given opportunity to explore whatever opportunity that is available to them to excel in their school work at their own pace, regardless of who they are in your class. As we have seen from above, ads might be exactly how they are presented to us. I think every ad should be research before venturing into it. This ads and the survey are known as detached statistic ads, which mean there was no comparison made. As we can see from the two different set, there were no comparisons in either one of them. Indeed, while Statistics can also be misused in many ways such as using not representative samples, small sample size, ambiguous averages and dispersions, detached facts, implied connections, wrong and misleading graphs, wrong use of statistical techniques, serious violation of assumption behind the statistical techniques and faculty surveys. Therefore a lot of misuse of statistics is not intentional, just uninformed. But that does not mitigate its danger when misused. Hence we should be very careful in our decision making process as what to believe it References Bluman, A. G. (2011). Mathematics in our world (1st ed. Ashford University Custom). United States: McGraw-Hill.