What does statistics encompass?

Statistics encompasses a broad range of methods and techniques that are essential for understanding, analyzing, and interpreting data effectively. By focusing on the first option, it's evident that statistics involves designing experiments to gather data and applying various analytical methods to make sense of that data.

The core of statistics lies in its methodological framework, which allows researchers and analysts to draw meaningful conclusions from their data through sampling techniques, hypothesis testing, regression analysis, and much more. This comprehensive approach enables experts to not only understand current data but also predict future trends and behaviors based on the analysis conducted.

While measuring central tendency is a component of statistics that helps summarize data, it does not capture the entire discipline's breadth, and similar limitations apply to techniques focused specifically on data storage or visualization, which are merely parts of the larger statistical methodology. In summary, option A most thoroughly represents the full scope of statistics as it includes both the design of experiments and the analysis of the resulting data.