On Statisticians III

"Predictions, prophecies, and perhaps even guidance - those who suggested this title to me must have hoped for such-even though occasional indulgences in such actions by statisticians has undoubtedly contributed to the characterization of a statistician as a man who draws straight lines from insufficient data to foregone conclusions!" (John W Tukey, "Where do We Go From Here?", Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 55 (289), 1960)

"[Statistics] is concerned with things we can count. In so far as things, persons, are unique or ill-defined, statistics are meaningless and statisticians silenced; in so far as things are similar and definite - so many workers over 25, so many nuts and bolts made during December - they can be counted and new statistical facts are born." (Maurice S Bartlett, "Essays on Probability and Statistics", 1962)

"The most important maxim for data analysis to heed, and one which many statisticians seem to have shunned is this: ‘Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than an exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.’ Data analysis must progress by approximate answers, at best, since its knowledge of what the problem really is will at best be approximate." (John W Tukey, "The Future of Data Analysis", Annals of Mathematical Statistics, Vol. 33, No. 1, 1962)

"Mathematical statistics provides an exceptionally clear example of the relationship between mathematics and the external world. The external world provides the experimentally measured distribution curve; mathematics provides the equation (the mathematical model) that corresponds to the empirical curve. The statistician may be guided by a thought experiment in finding the corresponding equation." (Marshall J Walker, "The Nature of Scientific Thought", 1963)

"The statistician cannot excuse himself from the duty of getting his head clear on the principles of scientific inference, but equally no other thinking man can avoid a like obligation." (Sir Ronald A Fisher, "The Design of Experiments", 1971)

"Competent statisticians will be front line troops in our war for survival-but how do we get them? I think there is now a wide readiness to agree that what we want are neither mere theorem provers nor mere users of a cookbook. A proper balance of theory and practice is needed and, most important, statisticians must learn how to be good scientists; a talent which has to be acquired by experience and example." (George E P Box, "Science and Statistics", Journal of the American Statistical Association 71, 1976)

"[In statistics] you have the fact that the concepts are not very clean. The idea of probability, of randomness, is not a clean mathematical idea. You cannot produce random numbers mathematically. They can only be produced by things like tossing dice or spinning a roulette wheel. With a formula, any formula, the number you get would be predictable and therefore not random. So as a statistician you have to rely on some conception of a world where things happen in some way at random, a conception which mathematicians don’t have." (Lucien LeCam, [interview] 1988)

"Statistics is a very powerful and persuasive mathematical tool. People put a lot of faith in printed numbers. It seems when a situation is described by assigning it a numerical value, the validity of the report increases in the mind of the viewer. It is the statistician's obligation to be aware that data in the eyes of the uninformed or poor data in the eyes of the naive viewer can be as deceptive as any falsehoods." (Theoni Pappas, "More Joy of Mathematics: Exploring mathematical insights & concepts", 1991)

"Things are changing. Statisticians now recognize that computer scientists are making novel contributions while computer scientists now recognize the generality of statistical theory and methodology. Clever data mining algorithms are more scalable than statisticians ever thought possible. Formal statistical theory is more pervasive than computer scientists had realized." (Larry A Wasserman, "All of Statistics: A concise course in statistical inference", 2004)

"In general, it is necessary to have some data on which to calculate probabilities.[...] Statisticians do not evolve probabilities out of their inner consciousness, they merely calculate them." (Leonard C Tippett)