Richard

Ok, I can kind of sympathize with the above statement given the way journalists and politicians throw statistical measures around! And after all, there is Darrel Huff's classic 1954 book "How to Lie with Statistics".

But on the other hand, it turns out that many processes in nature are probabilistic (Bohr championed Einstein in that long running debate). So as a result we have disciplines of "Statistical Mechanics", "Statistical Thermodynamics", and many more. The kind of statistics used here involves concepts introduced in a high school or college beginning statistics course, but also goes far beyond them using both algebras and a Calculus of probabilistic variables.

The point I would like to make is that many of the modern conveniences we have including efficient heat pumps, materials for integrated circuits, and the device you are using to read this post would not be possible without statistics.

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