Introduction of Statistics

UPES, Dehradun
Statisticsis as old as it seems, is not a new discipline but it is as
old as the human society itself.

In the old days statistics was regarded as the ‘Science of

Statecraft’ and was by product of the administrative activity of
state.

Derivedfrom the Latin word ‘status’ or Italian word ‘statista’ or

the German word ‘statistik’ or the French word ‘statistique’
which means a political state.

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In the ancient times the scope of statistics was primarily
limited to the collection of the following data by the
governments for framing military and fiscal policies.
1. Age and sex wise population of the country.
2. Property and wealth of the country.
The former enabling the government to have an idea of
the man power of the country and the latter providing it
with information for the introduction of new taxes and
levies.

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Seventeenth century saw the origin of ‘vital
statistics’. Captain John Grant of London, known as
the father of ‘Vital statistics’, was the first man to
study the statistics of births and deaths.

Useful for the computation of mortality tables and

the calculation of life expectation of life at different
ages by a number of person.

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Indian Statisticians have also made notable
contributions to the development of statistics in various
diversified fields. The valuable contributions of P. C.
Mahalanobis and P. V. Sukhatme (sample surveys) , R.
C. Bose, Panse, J. N. Srivastava (Design of Experiments
in Agriculture), S. N. Roy (Multivariate Analysis), C. R.
Rao (Statsitical Inference), Parthasarthy (Theory of
Probability) to mention only a few, have earned for
India a high position in the world map of Statisitics.

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 Statisitcs
Statistics has been defined differently by different authors from
time to time.
Defined in two ways.
Statistical data- Numerical statement of fact.
Statistical Methods- Complete body of the principles and
techniques used in collecting and analysing such data.
“Statistics are measurements, enumerations or estimates of natural
phenomenon, usually systematically arranged, analysed and
presented as to exhibit important inter-relationships among
them.” (A. M. Tuttle)

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“Statistics is the science which deals with the method of
collecting, classifying, presenting, comparing and interpreting
numerical data collected to throw some light on any sphere of
inquiry.” (Seligman)
“Statistics refers to the body of technique or methodology
which have been developed for the collection, presentation and
analysis of quantitative data and for the use of such data in
decision making.” (Netter and Wasserman)
“The science of statistics is the methods of judging collective,
natural and social phenomenon from the results obtained from
the analysis or enumeration or collection of estimates” (King)

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“Statistics may be defined as the science of collection,
presentation, analysis and interpretation of numerical data.”
(Croxton and Cowden)
Importance and Scope
Statistics and Business: Business executives are relying more and
more on statistical techniques for studying the need and desire of
the consumers and for many other purposes. The success of
businessman more or less depends upon the accuracy and
precision of his statistical forecasting. Wrong expectations, which
may be result of faulty and inaccurate analysis of various causes
affecting a particular phenomenon, might leads to disaster.

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Suppose a businessman wants to manufacture
readymade garments. Before starting with the
production process he must have an overall idea as to
How many garments are to be manufactured?
How much raw material and labour is needed?
What is the quality, shape, size, colour etc?

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 Limitations of Statistics
Statistics is not suited to the study of qualitative phenomenon-
Statistics is a science dealing with a set of numerical data,
applicable to the study of only those subjects of enquiry
which are capable of quantitative measurement. As such,
qualitative phenomena like honesty, poverty etc. which
cannot be expressed numerically, are not capable of direct
statistical analysis. However, statistical techniques may be
applied indirectly by the first reducing the qualitative
expressions to precise quantitative terms.

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Statistics does not study individuals- Statistics deals
with an aggregate of objects and does not give any
specific recognition to the individual items of a
series.
Statistical laws are not exact- “It has been found that
20% of a certain surgical operation by a particular
doctor are successful”

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Does not imply that if the doctor is to operate on 5
persons on any day and four of the operations have
proven fatal, the fifth must be success. It may happen
the fifth man also dies of the operation or it may also
happen that the five operation of any day, 2 or 3 even
more may be successful. By the statement we mean
that the no. Of operations becomes larger and larger
we should expect, on an average 20% operations to
be successful.

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Statistics is liable to be misused- Perhaps the most
important limitation of statistics is that it must be
used by experts. Statistical methods are the most
dangerous tools in the hands of the inexpert. The use
of statistical tools by inexperienced and untrained
persons might lead to very fallacious conclusions.

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