The purpose of statistics is to develop and apply methodology for extracting useful knowledge from both experiments and data. In addition to its fundamental role in data analysis, statistical reasoning is also extremely useful in data collection (design of experiments and surveys) and also in guiding proper scientific inference (Fisher, 1990). Major activties in statistics involve:
Statistics is neither really a science nor a branch of mathematics. It is perhaps best considered as a meta-science (or meta-language) for dealing with data collection, analysis, and interpretation. As such its scope is enormous and it provides much guiding insight in many branches of science, business, etc. Critical statistical reasoning can be extremely useful for making sense of the ever increasing amount of information becoming available (e.g. via the web).