I thought that the usual approach was to use Statistics with a capital S for the
field of study and statistics with a small s for things calculated from data.
Martin
Quoting [log in to unmask]:
> I agree with Dietrich. One reason for my agreement is that the use of the
> word statists as a singular noun (meaning statistical method) does not
> correspond with the everyday meaning of the word.
>
> In everyday use statistics is a plural noun, and it means the figures that
> millions of people read about or work with. They would not recognise the
> term 'data' as applying to, say, the latest increase reported in the RPI,
> or
> in the level of unemployment, or in checking their earnings, or monitoring
> the activities of their employer in terms of sales, output, etc.
>
> But this reason is symptomatic of a rather more fundamental problem.
> Statisticians in using statistics to mean statistical method tend to be
> blind to the fact that statistics, e.g. official statistics, have qualities
> other than numerical values. Many, if not most statisticians are rather
> like 'cheerful robots' (to use Wright Mills' classic phrase) in their
> handling of statistics. They are uncritical of the origins and purposes of
> the statistics they use or help produce. They expect to be able to learn
> something just by manipulating the numerical values given.
>
> The restriction of the meaning of statistics to statistical method has also
> been fairly disastrous for the development of the social sciences in
> Britain
> in recent decades. At present we have a government that has declared that
> it expects to be assessed on the basis of statistics relating to its
> performance. That is a historically unprecedented declaration. But
> there
> has been little reaction from academic social scientists - except for a few
> who have jumped on to the quantification bandwagon.
>
> Ray Thomas, Social Sciences, Open University
> Tel: 01908 679081 Fax 01908 550401
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> 35 Passmore, Milton Keynes MK6 3DY
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Dietrich Alte [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> > Sent: 04 January 2000 11:59
> > Cc: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: statistics and data
> >
> >
> > julian.p.wells wrote
> >
> > > Incidentally, it has often struck me that, given the
> > > contents of the journal, Radical Statistics is something of
> > a misnomer:
> > > "Radical Data" would capture its nature more accurately.
> > >
> >
> > the word "statistics" has surely more than one meaning. one of it -
> > and probably older than most others - is one that comes from the latin
> > "status" = state (political unit, conditional, physical etc.) and has
> > got something from "description of the state of the state" in it -
> > which is usually done with data on social, economic, political etc.
> > constructs.
> > as i understood radstats, it is _this_ meaning of data (and
> > despriptive+inferential statistics) that the "stats" in the list
> > focusses on.
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------
> > Dietrich Alte, Diplom-Statistiker
> >
> > Universitaet Greifswald
> > Institut fuer Epidemiologie und Sozialmedizin
> > Organisationszentrum Community Medicine
> > Walther-Rathenau-Str. 48, D-17487 Greifswald, Germany
> > phone +49 (0) 3834 - 86 77 13, fax +49 (0) 3834 - 86 66 84
> > email [log in to unmask]
> > -------------------------------------------------------------
> >
>
Prof J M Bland
Dept of Public Health Sciences
St George's Hospital Medical School
London SW17 0RE, UK
Tel 0181-725 5492
email [log in to unmask]
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