| Biological systems
tend to be very
complex and therefore sometimes difficult to describe mathematically.
Even something that can be directly measured (e.g. height) will vary
greatly from individual to individual, due to the large number of
factors that might contribute to that measurement. It is common in
biology, therefore, to consider things in terms of distributions, i.e.
a range of possible values and the probability that a randomly chosen
individual would have a certain measurement.
In this visualization, we use a simple graphical tool known as a histogram to group measured data -- in this case data on the percentage body fat of a group of adult men -- and to see how this data is distributed. the important thing to note about a histogram is that the way the histogram is constructed can affect how the resulting visual graph looks and is interpreted. |
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