"To consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him to conduct a post mortem examination. He can perhaps say what the experiment died of."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)
"No isolated experiment, however significant in itself, can suffice for the experimental demonstration of any natural phenomenon; for the "one chance in a million" will undoubtedly occur, with no less and no more than its appropriate frequency, however surprised we may be that it should occur to us."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)
"The statistician cannot excuse himself from the duty of getting his head clear on the principles of scientific inference, but equally no other thinking man can avoid a like obligation."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)
"Faith Is Not Credulity."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)
"We have the duty of formulating, of summarizing, and of communicating our conclusions, in intelligible form, in recognition of the right of other free minds to utilize them in making their own decisions."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)
"The statistician cannot evade the responsibility for understanding the process he applies or recommends."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)
"The best time to plan an experiment is after you've done it."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)
"Modern statisticians are familiar with the notion that any finite body of data contains only a limited amount of information on any point under examination; that this limit is set by the nature of the data themselves, and cannot be increased by any amount of ingenuity expended in their statistical examination: that the statistician's task, in fact, is limited to the extraction of the whole of the available information on any particular issue."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)
"I believe sanity and realism can be restored to the teaching of Mathematical Statistics most easily and directly by entrusting such teaching largely to men and women who have had personal experience of research in the Natural Sciences."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)
"We may consequently state the fundamental theorem of Natural Selection in the form: The rate of increase in fitness of any organism at any time is equal to its genetic variance in fitness at that time."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)
"Natural selection is a mechanism for generating an exceedingly high degree of improbability."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)
"After all, it is a common weakness of young authors to put too much into their papers."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)
"The best causes tend to attract to their support the worst arguments, which seems to be equally true in the intellectual and in the moral sense."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)
"... the actual and physical conduct of an experiment must govern the statistical procedure of its interpretation."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)
"The tendency of modern scientific teaching is to neglect the great books, to lay far too much stress upon relatively unimportant modern work, and to present masses of detail of doubtful truth and questionable weight in such a way as to obscure principles."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)
"For the future, so far as we can see it, it appears to be unquestionable that the activity of the human race will provide the major factor in the environment of almost every evolving organism. Whether they act consciously or unconsciously human initiative and human choice have become the major channels of creative activity on this planet. Inadequately prepared we unquestionably are for the new responsibilities, which with the rapid extension of human control over the productive resources of the world have been, as it were, suddenly thrust upon us."
—Ronald Fisher (1890-1962)