Norbert Wiener Quotes
I may remark parenthetically that the modern apparatus of the theory of small samples, once it goes beyond the determination of its own specially defined parameters and becomes a method for positive statistical inference in new cases, does not inspire me with any confidence unless it is applied by a statistician by whom the main elements of the dynamics of the situation are either explicitly known or implicitly felt.
Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Technology Press, 1948, p. 109.
The mathematics of modern statistical analysis are excellent, but there are many ways to end up with invalid results by making important errors in gathering the numbers which are then used to calculate the statistics. Often the sample is inadvertently or intentionally biased. Sometimes it is incomplete. Very frequently, the measures do not measure well what someone says they do measure. There are many other ways to mess up a statistical analysis, and is it those critical processes details that Gomez Hurtado tells us all to be worried about. He uses the analogy of blood sausage, which tastes delicious can be made with unsavory and unhealthy ingredients sometimes, and even when made right is a bit shocking to most people to watch the process.
Norbert Wiener was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and mathematical noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems.
