The Qualities of Statistics as Facts about Society.

This paper aims to apply science to the evaluation of statistics as facts about society. The conventional treatment of quality as having only one dimension militates against such an evaluation. Evaluation of statistics as facts about society requires consideration of a range of qualities including the categorizations used, the population covered, and the forms of publication available. The paper argues that the education and training of statisticians should be extended to cover the social construction of statistics including the use of denominators. This extension should contribute to the proper scientific use of published statistics - both by professional statisticians and other users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]