Ethical Problems In Statistics - Essay Example

Ethical problems in statistics Affiliation Statistics plays a significant part of our civic and democratic life. Therefore, the content ought to be developed by people who have achieved appropriate training in the discipline. This will ensure that the information reaching the intended users is precise in its judgments and truthful to them. Often this is not the case, and statisticians lie with statistics. Lies and misrepresentation in statistics can results due to the incompetence of statisticians although this is hardly the true in a majority of cases.

Distortion of statistical data and handling for a particular purpose that can be defined as fraud in some situations is perpetrated by people who are not statistics professional. Data produced by an expert is sometimes manipulated with a particular goal in mind. Often, it is common for statistical information presented in magazine and newspaper to be exaggerated due to the sensational nature of these media. Likewise, entities with statistical data or arguments that favours them will at times share this information with the intention of improving the facts in their areas of operations.

Some may change the fact directly or use of vague claims whose authenticity cannot be proven easily by the users. Although errors form part of a majority of statistical presentation, it is unethical to attribute them entirely to ignorance or chance. The reality is, such errors are ultimately designed with a purpose of deceiving the intended users by concealing or misrepresenting some facts. The statistician has at some point used influenced samples that are not large enough to facilitated reaching a valid conclusion.

Misrepresentation is possible in statistics since in the majority of situations, the reporting process is subjective and can be perpetrated undetected within the limits of the framework under review and jurisdiction. Another issue of ethics is, genuine data though full virtues can be manipulated, exaggerated, and oversimplified by experts and accepted by people. This compounded by the fact that people have a tendency to trust experts. As users of statistical data, we ought to be on the lookout for falsehoods in statistical reports.

First, we should look for the conscious or unconscious influence that have a tendency to distort the numbers and information. Figures may be filtered for controlling factors and thereby leading to the production of curious results. Secondly, we should be aware of and look for indicators of an influenced sample. These includes small samples size and biased samples. Thirdly, users should try to figure out if any information is missing. The absence of supporting information that directly relates to the source is enough to suspect unreliability.

It comes in the form of a correlation that does not present measures of reliability like probable error and standard deviation. Also, it can be in the form of a mentioned percentage that is not backed by its numeric base materials. Fourth, we should look for the possible trends present in the totals or conclusions. These trends will usually tend to give information of one case in comparison another whereas the cases may be not similar. Finally, for all claims made based on unproven assumption, the user should always analyse whether they make sense.

Though the current trends may be established using facts, the future trends can only predict successfully using a reasonable hypothesis.