Statistics and Common Sense

Abstract

AbstractCommon sense is a dynamic concept and it is natural that our (statistical) common sense lags behind the development of statistical science. What is not so easy to understand is why common sense lags behind as much as it does. We conduct a survey among Japanese students and provide examples and tentative explanations of a number of statistical questions where common sense and statistical science diverge. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

Keywords

• Common knowledge
• Experiment
• Probability
• Statistical methods