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Statistical Thinking
Populations — You’re doing it wrong
Why lawyers might be better than you at statistics
Let’s cover the basics briefly so we can get to the howling-in-frustration bit. In statistics, a population is the collection of all items that you are interested in (for the purpose of making a decision rigorously).
Should you even be attempting statistics?
You can’t answer that until you’re clear on what your population is (and it’s up to you to define it). The whole reason you’d want to take a statistical — as opposed to fact-based — approach is that you’re dealing uncertainty.
A statistical approach only makes sense when there’s a mismatch between the information you want and the information you have.
In other words, your available data (sample) doesn’t cover your whole population. If it did, you’d be dealing with facts, and facts are better than uncertainty. (If you’re thinking this last is a proclamation by Captain Obvious, perhaps you haven’t had the pleasure of grading college exam papers.) Facts mean you don’t need statistical expertise — simply state them and get on with life. No finicky p-values or credible intervals…
