Statistics in practice

The statistics you need to tell a real change from a lucky month — explained so anyone can follow, with the formulae written out and then translated into plain words.

The theme running through every piece: randomness imitates meaning very well, and these tools exist to stop you being fooled by it. Bell curves and where they lie, the chi-squared test and its fine print, the honest way to talk about a rate you're unsure of.

6 pieces

Articles in Statistics in practice

16 January 2026 The normal distribution — indispensable, and routinely assumed where it does not belong

The bell curve shows up everywhere for a real reason — and gets wrongly assumed everywhere else. How to enjoy the first and avoid the second.

9 January 2026 Chi-squared worked example — and every place the calculation can quietly go wrong

A complete worked test, in plain steps — with the four honesty checks that decide whether the answer deserves to be trusted.

25 February 2023 Why the chi-squared test is right-tailed — and what a too-perfect result means

Disagreement with your theory always pushes the chi-squared number up, never down. Which is why a suspiciously tiny result asks a different question — about the data itself.

25 February 2023 The chi-squared test — what it measures, and the fine print nobody reads

A test for counted things: complaints by site, passes by shift. It tells you whether a difference is bigger than chance — and stays silent about whether it matters.

25 February 2023 The beta distribution — the honest way to talk about rates you are unsure of

Ask a team their defect rate and you get one number. Ask how sure they are and the room goes quiet. This is the maths of that missing second answer.

14 December 2022 What is statistics — description, inference, and the gap people fall into

Half of statistics describes what happened. The other half makes careful guesses about what you did not see. Most mistakes come from mixing the two up.

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