The goals of this awareness campaign are to:
- Increase public understanding of the power and impact of statistics on all aspects of society
- Nurture statistics as a profession, especially among high-school and college students
Statistics2013 participants
Statistics2013 participants include national and international professional societies, universities, schools, businesses, government agencies and research institutes. These groups will help millions of people understand the value of statistical science through seminars, workshops and outreach to students and the media.
Statistics—the science of learning
Statistics—the science of learning from data and of measuring, controlling and communicating uncertainty—is much more than numbers on sports pages. Statistical science has powerful and far-reaching effects on everyone, yet most people are unaware of how it improves their lives, says Lars Lyberg, professor emeritus at the Department of Statistics. “For most people, statistics is an unknown science,” continues Lars Lyberg “Through this year long, worldwide awareness campaign, we will try to remove the veil that cloaks statistics from the public consciousness.”
The impact of statistics
Examples of the impact of statistics abound in our society. For instance, statistics predicts weather and other natural hazards, powers Internet search engines and marketing campaigns, discovers and develops new drugs and makes the world secure and sustainable. Throughout the last two centuries, statistics was indispensable in confirming many of humankind’s greatest scientific discoveries and breakthroughs, such as the Higgs-Boson particle and the agricultural Green Revolution.
Statistics is improving the quality of human life
Today, statistics is improving the quality of human life on the world’s major continents:
- Africa—Statistical analysis is reversing the cycle of poverty by improving literacy.
- Asia—Transportation infrastructure is being improved based on statistical models of people flow.
- Australia—Statistics was key in catching drug cheats during the 27th Olympic Games in 2000.
- Europe—Statistical science is a critical tool in planning efficient recycling systems.
- North America—Statistics is synthesizing evidence that improves treatments for heart conditions.
- South America—Statistical methods are helping to feed the world by identifying new crop varieties in breeding experiments.
“Our world is increasingly data-rich and data-dependent. Statistical analysis extracts information from this voluminous data to form the basis for decision-making in all types of organizations,” explains Lars Lyberg. “Without statistics, life would be very different.”
The website
Central features of the Statistics2013 awareness campaign are its website www.statistics2013.org and an informative two-and-a-half-minute video " Why Statistics Is Important to You" that explains how statistics improves the lives of the world’s 7 billion people. The website includes the following:
- What Is Statistics?—An explanation in layman’s language
- Stats2013AtSchool—A statistics quiz for students
- Statistics as a Career—Information about the work of statisticians and careers in statistics
- Teacher Resources—Primary and secondary school resources, a downloadable flyer and posters
The Department of Statistics is part of the network Statistics 2013
The Department of Statistics is part of the network Statistics 2013 and will during the year put extra focus on conveying knowledge about statistics to other parts of the University and the society as a whole.
Among other things we will:
- Organize open popular science lectures on statistics
- Initiate a co-operation with an upper secondary school through the project “Fadderskolor”
- Publish relevant relevant articles on statistics on our web site
- Participate in the public debate
The founding organizations of Statistics2013 are the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the International Biometric Society, the International Statistical Institute (and the Bernoulli Society), and the Royal Statistical Society.
For more information:
Lars Lyberg
Office: +46 (0)8-16 2969
Mobile phone: +46 (0)76 046 2530
E-mail: lars.lyberg@stat.su.se
