Nowadays, statistics is permeating nearly all areas of life. Whenever someone adds up numbers and draws conclusions from the result, it means that statistics is involved. A good enough reason for citizens to ask themselves the question:
What is statistics in general, and what do surveys and data analyses contribute to our lives?
As simple as this question may sound, an appropriate answer is just as complex.
Today, statistical methods and thoughts reverberate in a remarkably wide range of applications. Clinical studies, which are not feasible without statistics, are carried out to test new drugs. Urban planning and traffic development as well as other realms of infrastructure are based on economic and social statistics data.
The changing age pattern in the population causes a variety of effects, requiring the estimation of the population structure based on demographic and statistical methods.
Furthermore, bioinformatics and genome research is unimaginable without statistics today. The most recent extreme weather events are challenging statisticians and actuarial mathematicians. Economic forecasting requires statistics and econometrics. Finally, not to be forgotten is mathematics as a vital component of statistics.