Ronald Fisher - The Design of Experiments (1935)

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[...] the uncontrolled causes which may influence the result are always strictly innumerable.

Ronald Fisher
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.

Ronald Fisher
In relation to any experiment we may speak of this hypothesis as the null hypothesis, and it should be noted that the null hypothesis is never proved or established, but is possibly disproved, in the course of experimentation. Every experiment may be said to exist only in order to give the facts a chance of disproving the null hypothesis.

Ronald Fisher
Inductive inference is the only process known to us by which essentially new knowledge comes into the world.

Ronald Fisher
No isolated experiment, however significant in itself, can suffice for the experimental demonstration of any natural phenomenon; for the 'one chance in a million' will undoubtedly occur, with no less and no more than its appropriate frequency, however surprised we may be that it should occur to us.

Ronald Fisher
Statistical procedure and experimental design are only two different aspects of the same whole, and that whole is the logical requirements of the complete process of adding to natural knowledge by experimentation.

Ronald Fisher
Our view... Is that it is an essential characteristic of experimentation that it is carried out with limited resources, and an essential part of the subject of experimental design to ascertain how these should be best applied; or, in particular, to which causes of disturbance care should be given, and which ought to be deliberately ignored.

Ronald Fisher
A lady declares that by tasting a cup of tea made with milk she can discriminate whether the milk or the tea infusion was first added to the cup. We will consider the problem of designating an experiment by means of which this assertion can be tested.

Ronald Fisher