The Subject Matter of Statistics

Modern statistics provides research workers with knowledge, it is a young subject a product of the twentieth century. For scientist, it is a rapidly growing subject with much original materials still not available in texts. It grows as statisticians find answers to more and more of the problems posed by research workers.

When discussing the subject matter of statistics, we have to deal with its properties such as, is statistics a science or an art. Actually statistics is not a science in subject as other natural sciences such as Physics, Chemistry or Biology, it is a scientific method in its true form. Strictly speaking statistics is the science, pure and applied of creating, developing, and applying techniques such that the uncertainty of inductive inferences may be evaluated.

This explains to us the subject matter of statistics thus we can say that statistics is both a science as well as an art. It is a science in the sense that it is a pure scientific methods of doing research to learn about problems which contains uncertainty. It is an art in the sense that it is a technique used for solving problems such as descriptive statistics. Generally to most scientists, statistics is logic, or common sense (pure Science) with a strong mixture of arithmetic procedures. The logic supplies the methods by which data are to be collected and determines how extensive they are to be, the arithmetic together with certain numerical tables, yields the material on which to base the inference and measure its uncertainty.

The statistical method such as applied statistics deals with the application or use of the various statistical methods, including rules, principles and formulae in handing data relating to problems, in specialized fields.

To conclude the discussion of the subject matter of statistics, it is stated that statistics is both a science as well as an art. It is a science in-so-far as its methods are basically concerned and systematic and has a general application. It is an art in-so-far as the successful application of these statistical methods depends to a considerable degree on the skill and special experience of different statisticians, and the knowledge of the field of application, such as in economics, business, population etc., possessed by different statisticians.