Miscellaneous - This Day That Age   

dated 10, January, 1953: Statistics Vital:

Addressing the Indian Science Congress in Lucknow, Dr. H. Sinha of Calcutta University stressed the importance to be given in India to statistical methodology and research. Government had become well aware of the importance of properly collected data and their value when interpreted into information in planning and implementing schemes for economic and social welfare. Statistics was not merely the collection of data. Collected data had to be categorised and interpreted correctly. To interpret correctly one needed at least a working knowledge of the calculus of possibilities. Hence, he regarded the tendency in India to divorce statistics altogether from mathematics as unfortunate. Of course, there were limitations in using the calculus of possibilities and probability, and economic phenomena were far too complex to be amenable to straightforward application of mathematical theory. Secondly, there was no scope for precise replication in economic happenings. Thirdly, the mathematics appropriate for continuously changing populations had not been worked out. Lastly, variations in economic statistics were often too small to be efficiently dealt with by techniques of sampling. Dr. Sinha said that it was sad that there was a departmentalised approach to collecting and using statistics in the country. This led to duplication and lack of coordination. The speaker welcomed the efforts of the United Nations to standardise technically statistical methods the world over. But it also had to be remembered that even routine collection and use of data sound imagination also was called for.

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