To give an example, one of my favorites is by R. Fisher:
To consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him to conduct a post mortem examination. He can perhaps say what the experiment died of.
I'm not an outlier. I just haven't found my distribution yet. (This used to be my motto.)
Just found it on ResearchGate:
Non-parametric tests reflect a desire to get a free lunch [...].
(Ruben Roa-Ureta)
Seen in: https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_future_of_parametric_statistics_in_ecology?exp_tc=tprc
(sadly that likns to individual articles are not provided, so you will have to search...)
An approximate answer to the right problem is worth a good deal more than an exact answer to an approximate problem. - John Tukey
Norbert Wiener and A Rosenblueth
The best material model of a cat is another, ....... or preferably the same, cat.
Philosophy of Science 1945.
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent's point.
“Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.”
"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future."
Niels Bohr or Mark Twain (I found both cited as authors)
and, alike:
"An unsophisticated forecaster uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts - for support rather than for illumination. "
After Andrew Lang
"Those who have knowledge, don't predict. Those who predict, don't have knowledge."
Lao Tzu (6th Century BC Chinese Poet)
There are so many nice ones (they are *all* my favorites :) ):
"Do not put your faith in what statistics say until you have carefully considered what they do not say."
William W. Watt
"Statistics may be defined as 'a body of methods for making wise decisions in the face of uncertainty'."
W.A. Wallis
"Statistics are just a way for the mathematician to evangelize his faith."
Hunter Brinkmeier
"The theory of probabilities is at bottom nothing but common sense reduced to calculus."
Laplace, Théorie analytique des probabilités, 1820
“To consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him to conduct a post mortem examination. He can perhaps say what the experiment died of.”
R.A. Fisher,
1-"You cannot feed the hungry on statistics."
Heinrich Heine
2-"Recently released government economic statistics covering 2010, the first year of real recovery from the financial collapse of 2008, found that fully 93 percent of additional income gains coming out of the recession went straight into the wallets and purses of the top 1 percent."
Eric Alterman
I have to make a note on John Kerns favourite quote "The best material model of a cat is another, ....... or preferably the same, cat.":
This quote is good, it seems so simple but it is tricky. What are models? Models simplify. It is this simplyfication that provides us understanding, conceptualization, generalization. Hence, a real cat is *not* a good model of a real cat.
I'm not an outlier. I just haven't found my distribution yet. (This used to be my motto.)
"If your data is good enough, you don't need statistics"
Don't know who said that, but it stuck in my head, and eventually I came up with my own reply:
"..and to get data good enough, all you need is to be lucky enough to find a robust effect that nobody thought to publish before or be well-funded enough to afford enormous sample sizes. Here's my email in case neither of those work out for you."
1)If you can find a test that it seems strange for the ignorants, then you are done!
2)Try to use as difficult matrix expressions as you can!
3)Never reveal in a simple way the deeper meaning of your model!
4)If you can display a 'scientific' plot, then you can forget everything else!
5)Don' t worry about different results for a data set: it is the rule!
To be continued...
"You can't fix by analysis what you bungled by design." Light, Singer and Willett, page v
"An approximate answer to the right problem is worth a good deal more than an exact answer to an approximate problem." John Tukey
"Statistics are no substitute for judgment." Henry Clay
6)If you are a good liar you will probably be jailed, if you are a good statistician you will probably be published many times!
7)Statistics is a branch of science where people believe that infinity is equal to thirty!
8)Your model is excellent, but reality is away from it due to a violation of assumption #999 of the standard regression model!
9)Statistics is the powerful tool that Economists use in order to cut our wages in a scientific way!
10)Finally, Statistics will characterized after many years from now by History of Science as a Former Science, which has been closed now because of its several self-inconsistencies!
To consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him to conduct a post mortem examination. He can perhaps say what the experiment died of. Ronald Fisher (or at least that's the attribution)
Authority is to know the sources of variation. In Polish is "Władzą jest poznanie źródeł zmienności"
www.metodolog.pl
"Only in God we trust. All the others must bring data" A. Einstein
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