Foundations of applied statistical methods

摘要

Applied statisticians are the true makers of statistics since it is they who explore diverse areas of interest and use, to which this discipline can be applied, often involving situations not tailor made for them. For example, merit is a quality, but performance can be quantified. Is it not a challenge to assess merit simply by analyzing performance statistically, that is, are the test scores reliable and valid? Is it not astonishing that we can do stochastic modeling even of non-random data, simply arguing that this amounts to cheap and efficient prediction (as in a computer experiment)? Such intellectual arguments can only be made by an applied statistician.