General

by Lawrence Mark Lesser

Statistics must be fast. . .
‘cause my newspaper gives numerical nuggets as “fast facts”
‘cause my doctor’s orders say STAT when she wants a test done now
‘cause velocity is a big feature of big data

‘cause some statisticians
do accelerated testing,
fast Fourier transforms,
or a Tukey’s quick test

‘cause statisticians
run studies,
run simulations,
and run tests (like a runs test)

and those who run are fast, even
in the long run

Lyrics & Music © 2017 by Greg Crowther

CHORUS: 

Inferential and descriptive:
different stats with different rules
Inferential and descriptive:
different goals and different tools.

What's the average height of students in this room, whom I can measure?
Here you are describing data that you've got.

What's the average height of students living in Australia?
Now you are inferring something you know not.

[REPEAT CHORUS] 

When reporting variation in descriptive information,
interquartile range may be employed.
When reporting variation in inferential information,
standard error of the mean may fill the void.

[REPEAT CHORUS]