British Statistician Quotes

Francis Galton

George E. P. Box

Udny Yule

A. W. F. Edwards

Frank Anscombe

Are we probabilists, believers, or fuzzifiers?

All models are approximations. Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful. However, the approximate nature of the model must always be borne in mind...

George E. P. Box

The process of evolution on this earth, so far as we can judge, has been carried out neither with intelligence nor truth, but entirely through the routine of various sequences, commonly called "laws," established or necessitated we know not how.

There comes a time in the life of a scientist when he must convince himself either that his subject is so robust from a statistical point of view that the finer points of statistical inference he adopts are irrelevant or that the precise mode of inference he adopts is satisfactory.

A. W. F. Edwards

Statistics is the branch of scientific method which deals with the data obtained by counting or measuring the properties of populations of natural phenomena.

Maurice Kendall

If mathematics is a game, there is no reason why people should play it if they do not want to. With football, it belongs to those amusements without which life would be endurable.

Lancelot Hogben

Statistics may be defined as the discipline concerned with the treatment of numerical data derived from groups of individuals.

An observation with an abnormally large residual will be referred to as an outlier. Other terms in English are "wild", "straggler", "sport" and "maverick"; one may also speak of a "discordant", "anomalous" or "aberrant" observation.

Since the statistician can seldom or never make experiments for himself, he has to accept the data of daily experiences, and discuss as best he can the relations of a whole group of changes.

I am not altogether facetious in suggesting that, while non-Bayesians should make it clear in their writings whether they are non-Bayesian Orthodox or non-Bayesian Fisherian, Bayesians should also take care to distinguish their various denominations of Bayesian Epistemologists, Bayesian Orthodox, and Bayesian Savage.

Great numbers and the averages resulting from them, such as we always obtain in measuring social phenomena, have great inertia.

Arthur Lyon Bowley

Too often, in many fields of science, the statistician is regarded as someone who comes on stage after data have been collected, performs standard calculations, delivers a verdict "Significant" or "Not Significant", and then departs.

You complain that your report would be dry. The dryer the better. Statistics should be the driest of all reading.

Hitherto the user has been accustomed to accept the function of probability theory laid down by the mathematicians; but it would be good if he could take a larger share in formulating himself what are the practical requirements that the theory should satisfy in applications.