Some Quotable Quotes for Statistics J. E. H. Shaw April 6, 2006 Abstract Well—mainly for statistics. This is a collection of over 2,000 quotations from the famous, (e.g., Hippocrates: ‘Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future’), the infamous (e.g., Stalin: ‘One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic’), and the cruelly neglected (modesty forbids. ). Such quotes help me to: • appeal to a higher authority (or simply to pass the buck), • liven up lecture notes (or any other equally bald and unconvincing narratives), • encourage lateral thinking (or indeed any thinking), and/or • be cute. I have been gathering these quotations for over twenty years, and am well aware that my personal collection needs rationalising and tidying! In particular, more detailed attributions with sources would be very welcome (but please no ‘I vaguely remember that the mth quote on page n was originally said by Winston Churchill/Benjamin Franklin/Groucho Marx/Dorothy Parker/Bertrand Russell/George Bernard Shaw/Mark Twain/Oscar Wilde/Steve Wright’.) If you use this collection substantially in any publication, then please give a reference to it, in the form: J.E.H. Shaw (2006). Some Quotable Quotes for Statistics. Downloadable from http://www.ewartshaw.co.uk/ Particular thanks to Peter Lee for tracking down ‘. damn quotes. ’ (see Courtney, Leonard Henry): http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/courtney.htm. Other quote collections are given by Sahai (1979), Bibby (1983), Mackay (1977, 1991), and Gaither & Cavazos-Gaither (1996). Enjoy. Copyright c 1997–2006 by Ewart Shaw. If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders. Harold Abelson First, we want to establish the idea that a computer language is not just a way of getting a computer to perform operations but rather that it is a novel formal medium for expressing ideas about methodology. Thus, programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute. Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (1984) A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer. Dean Gooderham Acheson quoted in the ‘Wall St. Journal’, 8–Sept–1977 Always remember that the future comes one day at a time. Dean Gooderham Acheson Anybody can win unless there happens to be a second entry. George Ada 1 If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. Red Adair on his fee for extinguishing oil well fires after the Gulf War Here we have a game that combines the charm of a Pentagon briefing with the excitement of double-entry bookkeeping. Cecil Adams The Straight Dope (1996) ‘What’s the Deal with Dungeons and Dragons?’ The following examples may help to clarify the difference between the new and old math. 1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of this price. What is his profit? 1970 (Traditional math): A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. What is his profit? 1975 (New Math): A logger exchanges a set L of lumber for a set M of money. The cardinality of set M is 100 and each element is worth $1. (a) make 100 dots representing the elements of the set M (b) The set C representing costs of production contains 20 fewer points than set M. Represent the set C as a subset of the set M. (c) What is the cardinality of the set P of profits? 1990 (Dumbed-down math): A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Underline the number 20. 1997 (Whole Math): By cutting down a forest full of beautiful trees, a logger makes $20. (a) What do you think of this way of making money? (b) How did the forest birds and squirrels feel? (c) Draw a picture of the forest as you’d like it to look. Cecil Adams The Straight Dope (1997), ‘What exactly was the “new math”?’ Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. Douglas Noel Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) . he also had a device which looked rather like a largish electronic calculator. This had about a hundred tiny flat press buttons and a screen about four inches square on which any one of a million ‘pages’ could be summoned at a moment’s notice. Douglas Noel Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) ‘You can’t throw us into space,’ yelled Ford, ‘we’re trying to write a book.’ Douglas Noel Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) We are now cruising at a level of two to the power of twenty-five thousand to one against and falling, and we will be restoring normality just as soon as we are sure what is normal anyway. Thank You. Douglas Noel Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) ‘. I repeat we have normality.’ She turned her microphone off—then turned it back on, with a slight smile and continued: ‘Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem.’ Douglas Noel Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) ‘Tricia McMillan?’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘Same as you,’ she said, ‘I hitched a lift. After all with a degree in Maths and another in astrophysics what else was there to do? It was either that or the dole queue again on Monday.’ Douglas Noel Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) 2 ‘These things will become clear to you,’ said the old man gently, ‘at least,’ he added with slight doubt in his voice, ‘clearer than they are at the moment.’ Douglas Noel Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) ‘Look,’ said Arthur, ‘would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?’ Douglas Noel Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) ‘You just let the machines get on with the adding up,’ warned Majikthise, ‘and we’ll take care of the eternal verities thank you very much. You want to check your legal position you do mate. Under law the Quest for Ultimate Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers. Any bloody machine goes and actually finds it and we’re straight out of a job aren’t we? I mean what’s the use of our sitting up half the night arguing that there may or may not be a God if this machine only goes and gives you his bleeding phone number the next morning?’ ‘That’s right,’ shouted Vroomfondel, ‘we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!’ Douglas Noel Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) ‘I checked it very thoroughly,’ said the computer, ‘and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.’ Douglas Noel Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) ‘Your arrival on the planet has caused considerable excitement. It has already been hailed, so I gather, as the third most improbable event in the history of the Universe.’ ‘What were the first two?’ ‘Oh, probably just coincidences.’ Douglas Noel Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. Douglas Noel Adams The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980) The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate. Douglas Noel Adams The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980) In an Infinite Universe anything can happen,’ said Ford, ‘Even survival. Strange but true.’ Douglas Noel Adams The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980) I say what it occurs to me to say when I think I hear people say things. More I cannot say. Douglas Noel Adams The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980) ‘I only decide about my Universe,’ continued the man quietly, ‘My Universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay.’ Douglas Noel Adams The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980) ‘Totally mad,’ he said, ‘utter nonsense. But we’ll do it because it’s brilliant nonsense.’ Douglas Noel Adams The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980) 3 ‘Would you like me to quote you some statistics?’ ‘Er, well. ’ ‘Please, I would like to. They, too, are quite sensationally dull.’ Douglas Noel Adams Life, the Universe, and Everything (1982) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, in a moment of reasoned lucidity which is almost unique among its pages, says of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation products that “It is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words—and this is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation’s galaxywide success is founded—their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws.” Douglas Noel Adams So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish (1984) I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be. Douglas Noel Adams The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988) The most misleading assumptions are the ones you don’t even know you’re making.