Statistically Speaking: A Dictionary of Quotations

429 Pages·1996·15.486 MB·English

by  C.C. Gaither, Alma E Cavazos-Gaither

Statistically Speaking
A Dictionary of Quotations
About the Compilers
Carl C Gaither was bom in 1944 in San Antonio, Texas. He has conducted
research work for the Texas Department of Corrections and for the Louisiana
Department of Corrections. Additionally he has worked as an Operations
Research Analyst for the past ten years. He received his undergraduate
degree (Psychology) from the University of Hawaii and has graduate degrees
from McNeese State University (Psychology), North East Louisiana University
(Criminal Justice), and the University of Southwestem Louisiana (Mathematical
Statistics).
Alma E Cavazos-Gaither was born in 1955 in San Juan, Texas. She has worked in
quality control, material control, and as a bilingual data collector. She received
her associate degree (Telecommunications)f rom Central Texas College.
Statistically Speaking
A Dictionary of Quotations
Selected and Arranged by
Carl C Gaither
and
Alma E Cavazos-Gaither
Institute of Physics Publishing
Bristol and Philadelphia
@ 1996 IOP Publishing Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the publisher. Multiple copying is permitted in accordance with the terms
of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency under the terms of its
agreement with the Committee of ViceChancellors and Principals.
IOP Publishing Ltd has attempted to trace the copyright holders of all the
quotations reproduced in this publication and apologizes to copyright holders if
permission to publish in this form has not been obtained.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0 7503 0401 4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gaither, Carl C., 1944-
Statistically speaking : a dictionary of quotations / selected and
arranged by Carl C. Gaither and Alma E. Cavazos-Gaither.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. - ) and index.
ISBN 0-7503-0401-4 (alk. paper)
1. Probabilities--Quotations, maxims, etc. 2. Mathematical
statistics--Quotations, maxims, etc. I. Cavazos-Gaither, Alma E.,
1955- 11. Title.
QA273.63124 1996
519.5- 4c20 96-44176
CIP
Published by Institute of Physics Publishing, wholly owned by The Institute of
Physics, London
Institute of Physics Publishing, Techno House, Redcliffe Way, Bristol BS1 6NX,
UK
US Editorial Office: Institute of Physics Publishing, Suite 1035, The Public Ledger
Building, 150 South Independence Mall West, Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA
Typeset in TE3( using the IOP Bookmaker Macros
Printed in Great Britain by J W Arrowsmith Ltd, Bristol
We respectfully dedicate this book to our parents
Mr and Mrs C C Gaither
and
Ms M Cavazos
CONTENTS
PREFACE xi
ACTUARY 1
ANALYSIS 2
AVERAGE 6
BAYESIAN 18
CAUSE AND EFFECT 19
CERTAINTY 30
CHANCE 34
COMMON SENSE 50
CORRELATION 52
DATA 55
DEFINITIONS 59
DEGREES OF FREEDOM 64
DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS 65
DICE 67
DISTRIBUTIONS 71
ERROR 76
EXPERIMENT 83
FACTS 89
FORECAST 106
GAMBLING 111
GRAPHICS 113
HYPOTHESES 117
IMPOSSIBLE 122
INFINITE 125
Vii
Viii STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
KNOWLEDGE 126
LAWS 127
LIKELIHOOD 134
MEASUREMENT 136
MODELS 140
OBSERVATIONS 142
ORDER 148
OUTLIERS 150
PERCENTAGES 151
PRAYER 154
PREDICTION 156
PROBABILITY 158
PROBABLE 183
PROBLEMS 187
QUALITY CONTROL 188
QUEUE 190
RANDOMNESS 191
REASON 193
RECURSION 196
REGRESSION 197
RESEARCH 199
RESIDUALS 200
SAMPLE 201
SCIENCE 204
STATISTICAL 206
STATISTICIAN 221
STATISTICS 234
SURVEYS AND QUESTIONNAIRES 266
SYMMETRY 268
TABLES 269
TEACHING 271
TESTING 273
THEORY 275
TRUTH 284
CONTENTS ix
VARIABILITY 285
BIBLIOGRAPHY 289
PERMISSIONS 320
SUBJECT BY AUTHOR INDEX 331
AUTHOR BY SUBJECT INDEX 398
PREFACE
Statistically Speaking is a book of quotations. It has, for the first
time, brought together in one easily accessible form the best expressed
thoughts that are especially illuminating and pertinent to the disciplines
of probability and statistics. Some of the quotations are profound, others
are wise, some are witty, but none are frivolous. Quotations from the
most famous men and women lie in good company with those from
unknown wits. You may not find all the quoted ’jewels’ that exist, but
we are certain that you will find a great number of them here. We believe
that Benjamin Franklin was correct when he said that “Nothing gives an
author so much pleasure as to find his work respectfully quoted...”.
Statistically Speaking is also an aid for the individual who loves to
quote - and to quote correctly. “Always verify your quotations” was
advice given to Dean John William Bourgen, then fellow of Oriel College,
by Dr Martin Joseph Routh. That advice was given over 150 years ago
and is still true today. Frequently, books on quotations will have subtle
changes to the quotation, changes to punctuation, slight changes to the
wording, even misleading information in the attribution, so that the
compiler will know if someone used a quotation from ‘their’ book. We
attempted to verify each and every one of the quotations in this book to
ensure that they are correct.
The attributions give the fullest possible information that we could
find to help you pinpoint the quotation in its appropriate context or
discover more quotations in the original source. Judicial opinions and
speeches include, when possible, the date of the opinion or speech. We
assure the reader that not one of the quotations in this book was created
by us.
In summary, Statistically Speaking is a book that has many uses. You
Can:
Identify the author of a quotation.
0
Identify the source of the quotation.
0
Check the precise wording of a quotation.
0
Discover what an individual has said on a subject.
0
Find sayings by other individuals on the same subject.
0
xi
Xii STATISTKAL LY SPEAKING
How to Use This Book
1. A quotation for a given subject may be found by looking for that
subject in the alphabetical arrangement of the book itself. To illustrate,
if a quotation on likelihood is wanted, you will find nine quotations
listed under the heading likelihood. The arrangement of quotations
in this book under each subject heading constitutes a collective
composition that incorporates the sayings of a range of people.
2. To find all the quotations pertaining to a subject and the individuals
quoted use the SUBJECT BY AUTHOR INDEX. This index will help
guide you to the specific statement that is sought. A brief extract of
each quotation is included in this index.
3. If you recall the name appearing in the attribution or if you wish
to read all of an individual author’s contributions that are included
in this book then you will want to use the AUTHOR BY SUBJECT
INDEX. Here the authors are listed alphabetically along with their
quotations. The birth and death dates are provided for the authors
whenever we could determine them. When we could not find the
information we included a ( - ).
Thanks
It is never superfluous to say thanks where thanks are due. First, I
thank my stepdaughter Maritza Marie Cavazos for her assistance in
tracking down incomplete citations, looking for books in the libraries,
and helping to sort the piles of correspondence generated in obtaining
permissions. Next, we thank the following libraries for allowing us to use
their resources: the main library and the science library of The University
of Richmond; the main library of the Virginia Commonwealth University;
the medical library of the Virginia Commonwealth Medical School; the
main library and the science library of Baylor University; the main library
of the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor; the main library of the Central
Texas College; the main library, the physics-math-astronomy library, and
the human resource library of the University of Texas at Austin.
Additionally, we would like to thank each of the publishers who
provided permission to use the quotations. We made a very serious
attempt to contact the publishers for permission to use the quotations.
Letters were written to each publisher or agent for which we could find
an address. A follow-up letter was sent to those who did not respond to
our first letter. If no response was received we then assumed a calculated
risk and incorporated the quotation. In no way did we use a quotation
without attempting to obtain prior approval.
Carl Gaither
Alma Cavazos-Gaither
ACTUARY
Analytical and graphical treatment of statistics is employed by the
economist, the philanthropist, the business expert, the actuary, and'even
the physician, with the most surprising valuable results . . .
Karpansky, L.
High School Education
Chapter 6 (p. 134)
Someone once asked an accountant, a mathematician, an engineer, a
statistician and an actuary how much 2 plus 2 was. The accountant
said "4". The mathematician said "It all depends on your number base."
The engineer took out his slide-rule and said "approximately 3.99". The
statistician consulted his tables and said, "I am 95% confident that it lies
between 3.95 and 4.05." The actuary said "What do you want it to add
up to?"
Unknown
Actuaries are funny people. Even when they are wrong, they are right.
I told an actuary to go to the back of the queue. He immediately came
back and said that he couldn't-there was already someone there.
Unknown
An insurance company is like an automobile going down the road at high
speed. The managing director has his hands on the wheel, the marketing
director has his foot on the accelerator. The finance director is heaving
with all his might on the hand-brake and the actuary is in the back
screaming directions from a map he has just made by looking out of the
rear window.
Unknown
1