Statistics. A very brief introduction

Statistical ideas and methods underlie any aspect of modern life. Starting with randomized clinical trials used in medical research, and ending with the use of statistical models to assess the risk of banks and hedge funds, and statistical methods for studying huge astronomical databases. Thus, statistics have become a vital science to understand the world around us. However, the statistics that will be discussed does not coincide with the existing stereotype about the boring discipline. The times when arithmetic operations had to be performed manually, have long sunk into oblivion. After the revolution that occurred in statistics with the advent of computers, science has changed and is currently dynamically developing discipline, which uses advanced software tools to search for structures, templates and relationships hidden in numerical data. This "very short introduction" offers a view of statistics in terms of describing its history, gives examples of how statistics affect the world. The book briefly describes the methods of collecting and analyzing data, and also explains the role that the theory of probability in modern statistics plays. This book also explores an extremely important philosophical issue relating to induction: how statistics help to discern the true nature of the phenomenon under study in a limited set of observations