Peter Duniho wrote:

"Jessica Taylor" wrote in message
...
If you had ever studied statistics, you would know that is not true. That
is
why sample sizes are less than population sizes, and how confidence levels
are relevant.

I have studied statistics. Statistics are only relevant if you are trying
to make a statement about some proportion of a population.

Not true. The very foundation of Statistics is infering facts about an entire
population through the use of a much smaller representative sample.

A blanket
generalization is necessarily about 100% of the population, and the only way
to actually *prove* something about 100% of the population is to survey the
entire population.

Not true. We can prove that a medicine is effective at treating a malady
without testing its effectiveness on 100% of its population. We can prove that
chronic smokers have a higher risk of bladder and lung cancers than their peers
who have never smoked without needing to find the entire populations of smokers
and non smokers.

Statistics has nothing to do with it.

Not true but then again, I don't believe that the original poster said 100%.