“Importance of Being Uncertain” (2013) | one minute summary

Introduction to sampling and estimation.

Krzywinski, M., Altman, N. Importance of being uncertain. Nat Methods 10, 809–810 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.2613

This first paper from the Nature Methods Points of Significance collection introduces the concepts of sampling and estimation, which can be used to generalize from observed data to the world at large.

1. What? We can use the mean (μ_X̄) and standard deviation (σ_X̄) of a distribution of sample means (X̄, s) to estimate the mean (μ) and standard deviation (σ) of a population
2. Why? Because it is impossible to directly the mean and std. dev of a population, so the best we can do is estimate it
3. How? The central limit theorem tells us that the distribution of sample means will become closer and closer to a normal distribution with increasing sample size (n), relating population and sample distribution parameters with: μ_X̄ = μ and σ_X̄ = σ/√(n)

Final thought: always keep in mind that your calculations are estimates, especially for smaller sample sizes