ABSTRACT
Two major characterizations of the term “ethical” need to be distinguished in this preamble, if only because this book focuses on just one of them. The definition not used is where “ethical” pertains to principles of morality and what is right or wrong in conduct; thus, we speak of an “ethical (or moral) dilemma” as a situation involving an apparent conflict between moral imperatives, where obeying one would result in transgressing another.1
This is more than we wish to undertake, or even be capable of, in a book devoted to statistical literacy as an assistance to ethical reasoning. The meaning of “ethical” adopted here is one of being in accordance with the accepted rules or standards for right conduct that govern the practice of some profession. The professions we have in mind are statistics and the behavioral sciences, and the standards for ethical practice are what we try to instill in our students through the methodology courses we offer, with particular emphasis on the graduate statistics sequence generally required for all the behavioral sciences. Our hope is that the principal general education payoff for competent statistics instruction is an improvement in people’s ability to be critical and ethical consumers and producers of the statistical reasoning and analyses faced in various applied contexts over the course of their careers. Thus, this book is not as much about the good uses of statistics, but more about the specious applications when either statistical ideas are being applied unethically, or some quantitative insight might otherwise help prevent statistical “blunders” by the chronically careless. It
may not be unethical to be ignorant of the principles that guide a particular profession, but it is unethical to be ignorant and act as if one is not. As an example, it is unethical to use some statistical program blindly to do something that you don’t understand, and know that you don’t, but then proceed to interpret the results as if you really did. It is best to keep the adage in mind that if you don’t know how to do something, then you don’t know how to do it on a computer.2
