Statistics is also a method, a way of working with numbers to answer puzzling questions about both human and nonhuman phenomena. Questions answerable by using the “method” of statistics are many and varied: Which of several techniques is best for teaching reading to third-graders? Will a new medicine be more effective than the old one? Can you expect it to rain tomorrow? What is the probable outcome of the next presidential election? Which assembly-line process produces fewer faulty carburetors? How can a polling organization make an accurate prediction of a national election by questioning only a few thousand voters? And so on.

For our purposes, statistics is both a collection of numbers and/or pictures and a process: the art and science of making accurate guesses about outcomes involving numbers.

So, fundamentally, the goals of statistics are

• To describe variables and data

• To make accurate inferences about groups based upon incomplete information

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