The Scientific Method

[CaptainPanic]

Most scientific results are expressed statistically.

You think? Would you provide evidence that substantiates this claim please.

I think it is not a bad assumption... although I doubt there are many statistics of the statistics to back up the claim. We can however say that:

 

1. Most measured data points will (or at least should) be expressed with a margin of error. That in itself is already a statistical statement, which means that the vendor of a piece of equipment, or the scientists themselves say: "We expect that with XX% certainty the true value is within so-and-so many units from this data point".

 

2. And if you read a conclusion of a paper, very often the results will be summarized. Average values, or a fit will be presented. Many scientists enjoy using a statistical fit of a data set, which makes it easy to interpolate (or even extrapolate!) data.

 

3. The scientific method almost always will duplicate an experiment, but in practice the data points will not exactly overlap, so it is a common practice to use average values.

 

I don't think anyone would dare to claim that all scientists apply statistics correctly. I have seen plenty of disasters in papers where statistics were used wrongly, or even abused, to fabricate some results. But it is used a LOT.

 

Anyway, 56% of all statistics are wrong - including this one.

[StringJunky]

Anyway, 56% of all statistics are wrong - including this one.

 

65.7643% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Edited January 31, 2012 by StringJunky