Do you think that the 330 triathletes who responded to the survey may be considered a random sample from the population of triathletes?

In terms of the "great wheel of science", statistics are central to the research process (a) only between the hypothesis phase and the observation phase (b) only between the observation phase and the empirical generalization phase (c) only between the theory phase and the hypothesis phase (d) only between the empirical generalization phase and the theory phase