309 Quotes About Statistics

There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up.

Convincing - and confident - disciplines, say, physics, tend to use little statistical backup, while political science and economics, which have never produced anything of note, are full of elaborate statistics and statistical “evidence” (and you know that once you remove the smoke, the evidence is not evidence).

Coincidence”, he finally said. “Statisticans looking for connections can always find odd coincidences and statistical anomalies, if they try hard enough.

Black Swans and tail events run the socioeconomic world

I can prove anything by statistics except the truth.

Why is your equation only for angels, Roger? Why can't we do something, down here? Couldn't there be an equation for us too, something to help us find a safer place?' 'Why am I surrounded,' his usual understanding self today, 'by statistical illiterates? There's no way, love, not as long as the mean density of strikes is constant.

The only meaningful statistic in warfare is when the other side quits.

Statistical fact: cops will never pull over a man in a sweet vanif he’s carrying forty pounds of sinsemilla buds. Another fact:ninety percent of all statistics are made up.

Many a statistic is false on its face. It gets by only because the magic of numbers brings about a suspension of common sense.