Statistics Quotes - Page 27

• It comes as no surprise that average Americans have a different perception of the economy than (US President) George W. Bush and his friends. They can play around with statistics as much as they want, but it's clear that we have an unfair distribution of wealth.

  Kenneth Rogoff

  Average, Play, Perception

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• Incredibly, nearly 70,000 Young Adults between 15-39 are diagnosed with cancer each year. 10,000 will not survive. This is a very important stat for me, because I fall in this category. I am one of these statistics. Unlike every other age group, there has been no improvement in the 5-year survival of young adults in 30 years. That means many young adults have the same chance of getting cancer and dying from it as they did in the 1970's. This is not OK.

  Jenna Morasca

  Cancer, Fall, Mean

  "Jenna Morasca and Ethan Zohn Share Their Story of Love, Survivor and Battling Cancer". Interview with Rosemary Brennan, www.glamour.com. May 10, 2011.

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• America already holds the record for freak movements. Now we have a new one. It's called "Restoring Confidence." Rich men who never had a mission in life outside of watching a stock ticker are working day and night "restoring confidence." Writers are working night shifts, speakers' tables are littered up, ministers are preaching statistics, all on "restoring confidence."

  Will Rogers

  Business, Night, Men

  Will Rogers (1978). “Will Rogers' Daily Telegrams: The Coolidge years, 1926-1929”, Will Rogers Heritage Trust

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• The goal of scientific physicians in their own science ... is to reduce the indeterminate. Statistics therefore apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still indeterminate.

  Claude Bernard

  Science, Goal, Physicians

  Claude Bernard (2012). “An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine”, p.161, Courier Corporation

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• The study of eugenics had its beginning in Germany, sometime after the mid-19th century mark, stimulated by volkish concerns for Aryan racial purity. Rudolf Virchow, pathologist and politician, began a study of national ethnic statistics in 1871, convinced that the majority of Germans would prove to be of relatively pure Nordic descent. The results of his studies proved otherwise. According to Virchow, the obvious solution was to set about Nordicizing the debased German stock.

  Jim Keith

  Eugenics, Majority, Germany

  Jim Keith (2003). “Mass Control: Engineering Human Consciousness”, p.12, Adventures Unlimited Press

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• The organized charity, scrimped and iced, In the name of a cautious, statistical Christ.

  John Boyle O'Reilly

  Names, Charity, Christ

  In Bohemia In Bohemia

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• When a physician is called to a patient, he should decide on the diagnosis, then the prognosis, and then the treatment. ... Physicians must know the evolution of the disease, its duration and gravity in order to predict its course and outcome. Here statistics intervene to guide physicians, by teaching them the proportion of mortal cases, and if observation has also shown that the successful and unsuccessful cases can be recognized by certain signs, then the prognosis is more certain.

  Claude Bernard

  Teaching, Successful, Science

  Claude Bernard (2012). “An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine”, p.231, Courier Corporation

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• As soon as the circumstances of an experiment are well known, we stop gathering statistics. ... The effect will occur always without exception, because the cause of the phenomena is accurately defined. Only when a phenomenon includes conditions as yet undefined,Only when a phenomenon includes conditions as yet undefined, can we compile statistics. ... we must learn therefore that we compile statistics only when we cannot possibly help it; for in my opinion, statistics can never yield scientific truth.

  Claude Bernard

  Learning, Knowledge, Science

  Claude Bernard (2012). “An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine”, p.159, Courier Corporation

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• I would not go so far as to say that vaccination has never saved a person from smallpox. It is a matter of record that thousands of the victims of this superstitious rite have been saved from smallpox by the immunizing potency of death. But it is a fact that the official statistics of England and Wales show unmistakably that, while vaccination has killed ten times more people than smallpox, there has been a decrease in smallpox concomitant with the decrease in vaccination. . . It might be appropriately asked, in the words of the Vaccination Inquirer

  Herbert M. Shelton

  Vaccines, People, Records

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• I do not ... reject the use of statistics in medicine, but I condemn not trying to get beyond them and believing in statistics as the foundation of medical science. ... Statistics ... apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still [uncertain or] indeterminate. ... There will always be some indeterminism ... in all the sciences, and more in medicine than in any other. But man's intellectual conquest consists in lessening and driving back indeterminism in proportion as he gains ground for determinism by the help of the experimental method.

  Claude Bernard

  Believe, Science, Men

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• Death is a convention, a certification to the end of pain, something for the vital statistics book, not binding upon anyone but the keepers of graveyard records.

  Wallace Stegner

  Death, Pain, Book

  Wallace Earle Stegner (1995). “Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs: living and writing in the West”, Random House Value Pub

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• Extreme heroism springs from something that no scientific theory can fully explain; it's an illogical impulse that flies in the face of biology, psychology, actuarial statistics, and basic common sense.

  Christopher McDougall

  Spring, Common Sense, Psychology

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• Baseball is slovenly and excessive in midsummer, with its onrolling daily cascade of line scores and box scores, shifting statistics, highlights and lowlights, dingers and shutouts, streaks and slumps.

  Roger Angell

  Sports, Baseball, Slumps

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• Statistics vary, but in less than seven years there won't be a single cell left in any of our bodies that's the same as it is today. This means that any human being who 'wants' to change is like a mountain river wanting to reach the valley floor. It's a done deal; that's what mountain rivers do, and 'changing' should be our first nature.

  Guy Finley

  Mean, Cells, Years

  "Fear and the ‘Anti-Change Factor’" by Guy Finley, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 10, 2012.

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• Robert Kennedy identified with people, not data, or institutions, or theories. Poverty was a specific black face for him, not a manila folder full of statistics.

  Jack Newfield

  Adversity, Data, People

  Jack Newfield (2009). “RFK: A Memoir”, p.48, Nation Books

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• Living in cities is an art, and we need the vocabulary of art, of style, to describe the peculiar relationship between man and material that exists in the continual creative play of urban living. The city as we imagine it, then, soft city of illusion, myth, aspiration, and nightmare, is as real, maybe more real, than the hard city one can locate on maps in statistics, in monographs on urban sociology and demography and architecture.

  Jonathan Raban

  Art, Real, Men

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• That's the trouble with languages. They have to be learned.

  John W. Campbell

  Language, Trouble

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• [Statistics] Fiction in its most uninteresting form.

  Evan Esar

  Science, Technology, Fiction

  Esar's Comic Dictionary

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• [Statistics] The science that can prove everything except the usefulness of statistics.

  Evan Esar

  Science, Technology, Prove

  Esar's Comic Dictionary

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• All statements are true, if you are free to redefine their terms.

  Thomas Sowell

  Science, Term, Ifs

  Thomas Sowell (1995). “The Vision of the Anointed: Self-congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy”, p.102, Basic Books

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• Any statistics can be extrapolated to the point where they show disaster.

  Thomas Sowell

  Science, Disaster, Shows

  Thomas Sowell (1995). “The Vision of the Anointed: Self-congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy”, p.102, Basic Books

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• I fancy you give me credit for being a more systematic sort of cove than I really am in the matter of limits of significance. What would actually happen would be that I should make out Pt (normal) and say to myself that would be about 50:1; pretty good but as it may not be normal we'd best not be too certain, or 100:1; even allowing that it may not be normal it seems good enough and whether one would be content with that or would require further work would depend on the importance of the conclusion and the difficulty of obtaining suitable experience.

  William Sealy Gosset

  Science, Giving, Would Be

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• I've come loaded with statistics, for I've noticed that a man can't prove anything without statistics. No man can.

  Mark Twain

  Science, Men, Prove

  Mark Twain (1984). “Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims and other salutary platform opinions”, Harpercollins

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• Killing one man is murder. Killing millions is a statistic

  Robert Kennedy

  Science, Men, Murder

  Robert F. Kennedy (1964). “Rights for Americans: the speeches of Robert F. Kennedy”

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• Most variables can show either an upward or downward trend, depending on the base year chosen.

  Thomas Sowell

  Science, Years, Variables

  Thomas Sowell (1995). “The Vision of the Anointed: Self-congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy”, p.102, Basic Books

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