To estimate the population mean of the weights of newborn elephants accurately, the biologist should use a method that minimizes bias and maximizes the representativeness of the sample. The best approach among the options given is:
Calculate the mean of 50 randomly selected weights in the table.
This method ensures that the sample is more representative of the entire population of 500 newborn elephants, as it avoids any systematic biases that might arise from only taking the first or a small number of weights, which could be influenced by factors like measurement conditions or trends occurring during the data collection process.
Calculating the mean of 50 randomly selected weights provides a better estimate of the true population mean compared to the other options, which either focus on a small and potentially biased sample (like the first five weights) or a set number of samples that may not be representative of the entire population (like the first 50 weights).
In summary, using randomness in selection helps ensure that the sample accurately reflects the population characteristics.