CEDO 540 Week 1

This week we were introduced to the basics of statistics.  For the most part, statistics is the gathering and analyzing of data.  To many this is very boring stuff.  For me, it depends what I am doing with the data.  In many cases, I use data to try to predict what would happen in a future occurrence of something such as weather (which is all about statistical analysis) or even to predict the results of a future experiment.  I also attempt to use statistics along with the scientific method to help either prove or disprove a hypothesis that I might have.  For the most part, my hypotheses are relatively simple.  They can range from "Can I hit the snooze button and still get the kids onto the school bus?" to "How can I best make sure that I won't be one of the teachers on the cutting block next year?"  The snooze button hypothesis is tested on almost a daily basis, which adds to the amount of data that I have (for the most part, I can hit the snooze button at least once and get the kids on the school bus successfully). 
One of the books that was recommended to us in class, (How to Lie With Statistics) is a good review of how statistics can be used to attempt to prove a specific point of view if used in a biased manner.  I liked what I read enough to order a copy from Amazon.com.  The link for the book at Amazon is here.