Statistical Limitations Quotes

Statistics is the first of the inexact sciences.

It is difficult to understand why statisticians commonly limit their inquiries to Averages, and do not revel in more comprehensive views. Their souls seem as dull to the charm of variety as that of the native of one of our flat English counties, whose retrospect of Switzerland was that, if its mountains could be thrown into its lakes, two nuisances would be got rid of at once.

A 99% Value-at-Risk calculation does not evaluate what happens in the last one percent... This is like an airbag that works all the time, except when you have a car accident.

While ideological blinkers blind one to change that one does not wish to see, statistics and opinion surveys, too, have their limitations in a complex polity like India.

Whenever I see a forecast written out to two decimal places, I cannot help but wonder if there is a misunderstanding of the limitations of the data, and an illusion of precision.

Society and medicine treat us all as members of populations, whereas as individuals we are all unique, and population statistics do not apply.

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.

In psychology, there's something called the broken-leg problem. A statistical formula may be highly successful in predicting whether or not a person will go to a movie in the next week. But someone who knows that this person is laid up with a broken leg will beat the formula. No formula can take into account the infinite range of such exceptional events.

Aggregate statistics can sometimes mask important information.