Statistics has wide applications in almost every sphere of human activities. There is nearly no place where statistics are not used. In spite of being many applications, the following are a few limitations of statistics:
1. Statistics do not study individual:
It deals with the aggregate of facts and doesn’t give any individual measurement. Individual item does not constitute statistical data and is meaningless for statistical enquiry. For example, a student’s marks in economics can’t be considered as statistics but the marks obtained by all the students make statistics.
2. It is not suitable for the study of a qualitative phenomenon:
Statistics always studies the quantitative characteristics of the given problems. A qualitative phenomenon like honesty, culture, love, poverty, etc, can’t be expressed numerically or direct statistical analysis. However, that phenomenon can be expressed indirectly of numbers and analyzed in statistics.
3. Statistical relations are not exact:
Most of the statistical analysis is based on the collected data that may not be 100% correct. If the data are not correct, then the result obtained from such data can’t be expected 100% accurate. Thus, it just describes the phenomenon on average.
4. Statistics is liable to be misused:
There is a great possibility of the misuse of statistics. Any person can misuse statistics and draw any type of conclusions he likes. Only the experts can handle statistical data properly. When statistical data are in the hand of in-expert, at that condition, it may lead wrong information and most fallacious conclusions. So, statistics might be harmed in the hand of an unskilled person.
5. One of the methods of solving problem:
There are many methods of solving the given problem. It is one method of solving the problem. It may not be suitable for all the problems.
Share on Social Media