s, and often people from the outside view this as <em>the</em> main purpose of statistics. But as we will see throughout the book, this need for black-and-white decisions based on fuzzy evidence has often led researchers astray.</p>
<p>Based on the data we would also like to make predictions about future outcomes. For example, a life insurance company might want to use data about a particular person’s intake of fat and carbohydrate to predict how long they are likely to live. An important aspect of predic