Statistical Analysis Quotes

“Science of yoga and ayurveda is subtler than the science of medicine, because science of medicine is often victim of statistical manipulation.”
― Amit Ray

“Significance unfortunately is a useful means toward a personal ends in the advance of science - status and widely distributed publications, a big laboratory, a staff of research assistants, a reduction in teaching load, a better salary, the finer wines of Bordeaux. Precision, knowledge, and control. In a narrow and cynical sense statistical significance is the way to achieve these. Design experiment. Then calculate statistical significance. Publish articles showing "significant" results. Enjoy promotion.

But it is not science, and it will not last.”
― Stephen Thomas Ziliak, The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives

“That so far the material has been dealt with in a rather subjective way provokes the question whether a means can be found of handling it objectively. [...] This chapter considers the applicability of the statistical tests employed by Wilson and the general problem whether the Linear B data are suited to statistical analysis.”
― Jennifer K. McArthur, Place-Names in the Knossos Tablets Identification and Location

“If we had enough data then this statistical approach would undoubtedly sort out these things, and a lot of problems are arising precisely because we haven't got enough documents for the statistical approach to be wholly valid. I know you can calculate levels of probability and so forth, but to establish this really clearly we want a lot more information than we have actually got available. This is surely our major problem that we are still at the very limits at which you can use a technique of this sort. - John Chadwick”
― Jennifer K. McArthur, Place-Names in the Knossos Tablets Identification and Location

“No data are excluded on subjective or arbitrary grounds. No one piece of data is more highly valued than another. The consequences of this policy have to be accepted, even if they prove awkward.”
― Jennifer K. McArthur, Place-Names in the Knossos Tablets Identification and Location

“The aim of the research is to determine what groups can be drawn up as a result of regular association of place-names. A further step is to consider whether such groups have a geographical significance. This was accepted by Palmer as a reasonable hypothesis; Wilson argued the case for it by considering possible ways in which information to be recorded on the tablets was received by the scribes. Underlying this work is the assumption that groupings may have a geographical basis, but it has still to be shown that this is a reasonable assumption.”
― Jennifer K. McArthur, Place-Names in the Knossos Tablets Identification and Location

“Police not enforcing laws results in a high crime rate that is formally reported as a low crime rate in police statistics.”
― Steven Magee