Quote:
Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist
Stats don't predict. They give probabilities. I know a lady who smoked until she died at age 93. Doesn't mean we throw out what we know about smoking and health
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No you're wrong.
One of the first lessons in Probabilities & Statistics 101 is probabilities and statistics aren't the same thing.
For example:
"Smokers have a 1 in 10 chance of dying from cancer" is a probability (just pulled numbers out of nowhere to illustrate a point)
"1000 Canadians die each year from smoking related diseases" is a statistic (again random numbers)
These advanced stats are more akin to the last example than the first and are therefore, as their name suggests, statistics. Statistics are useful in painting a picture, but they by no means can be used to make a prediction.