Tuesday (21/3), The Rector of University Al-Azhar Indonesia (UAI) Prof. Dr. Ir. Asep Saefuddin, M.Sc. became the distinguished speaker for public lecture 2023 edition at Universiti Teknologi Mara Malaysia (UiTM) Kelantan Branch. On the occasion, he discussed the topic of Statistics and Modern Society. The concern should be vital as he focused on six courses outlined that consist of Statistics: Glancing Ontologically; The Early Period of Statistics Journey (The Foundations); Tracing Significant Role of Statistics; Statistics and Modern Society: What and How is the Relationship?; Statistics in the Future: A Prediction (Big Data), and Conclusion: The Ever-increasing Need for Statistics in the Modern World and Society virtually from Zoom as well as broadcasted from YouTube.
In the first, Prof. Asep explained that Modern society is often called materialistic in which people no longer produce products for living. Instead, they produce goods to sell in the market. People do not rely on their own. These societies stress on the quality of education for all. Furthermore, modernization encompasses development in various dimensions in political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental, among others. are influenced by country-specific values and historical contexts, and differ among countries (ADB, 2020)
Statistics is related to any kind of knowledge in the world especially in economics and business as it is theoretically based on probability by Tracing the Regress Theory. Statistics has influenced from budgeting, production, sales, assets, project management, to payroll. This, then, brought statistics as a method to find truth and made all the statisticians have to be careful to rely on the data without knowing it first on how to get the data. This is a risk as it will not lead all the statisticians to get the exact conclusion.
“Statistics describes the condition more clearly as it is very helpful in making rational and assertive conclusions. I advised my students who learn statistics to commit in their prayer in using statistics properly. Statistics is very powerful as it can be both How to Lie and How Not to Lie, so please be wiser”. (Prof. Asep)
Statistics also plays a significant aspect as the uncertainty remover or black box phenomenon in modern society. It has been used as a paradigm in society as a social product of decision making and policy based. The theory by Laurence Gartside in Official Statistics as the Bedrock of Our Society as Big Data (Four VS) which are Volume, Velocity, Veracity, and Variety as the methods to deal with big data and it is called data science. Today, this can be found as the Government, the Economy, and the Public have applied into their systems.
Equally important, Prof. Asep added some words that statistics as the stick in the realm of ignorance is still relevant and more highly pertinent to use in facing current and future circumstances that are full of uncertainty and a complex world. Scientists and people are able to understand phenomena easily, outstandingly, and definitely with it. political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental, among others. are influenced by country-specific values and historical contexts, and therefore differ among countries (ADB, 2020)
To sum up, Prof. Asep delivered those statistics have played a significant role and given many contributions since several centuries, according to numerous records whether academic and practice, official and private documents. A number of authors have revealed empirical evidence about statistics, vibrant impact, model driven, and data driven approaches. Statistics will always useful in modern society, ie. Predictive Modeling, Machine Learning. Big Data has urgent needs, continuing the statistics part in modern society, combining computer science and mathematics. Understanding statistics to analyze important factors in health, business, economic, environment, politics, social, basic sciences. The uncertainty is reduced by or with statistics. Statistics, big data (accumulated data) make us able to predict and discover the future to avoid irrelevant and illogical methods (forecaster) to know and face the future (la raison d’etre au scientitifiqu).
At the end, Prof. Asep expressed his thanks to UiTM Kelantan Branch and The Rector of UiTM Kelantan Branch, Dr. Haji Abdul Samad bin Nawi for having him at this special moment. He also hoped the best for Malaysia and Indonesia in the future and He wished everyone for having an incredible Ramadan this year. (TSH)