#statistic

In baseball, my theory is to strive for consistency, not to worry about the numbers. If you dwell on statistics you get shortsighted, if you aim for consistency, the numbers will be there at the end. ↗

— Tom Seaver

#aim #baseball #consistency #dwell #end

Voting, we might even say, is the next to last refuge of the politically impotent. The last refuge is, of course, giving your opinion to a pollster, who will get a version of it through a desiccated question, and then will submerge it in a Niagara of similar opinions, and convert them into--what else?--another piece of news. Thus we have here a great loop of impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing. ↗

— Neil Postman

#elections #irrelevance #media #nate-silver #news

J. E. Littlewood, a mathematician at Cambridge University, wrote about the law of truly large numbers in his 1986 book, "Littlewood's Miscellany." He said the average person is alert for about eight hours every day, and something happens to the average person about once a second. At this rate, you will experience 1 million events every thirty-five days. This means when you say the chances of something happening are one in a million, it also means about once a month. The monthly miracle is called Littlewood's Law. ↗

— David McRaney

#delusion #psychology #statistics #experience

The value for which P=0.05, or 1 in 20, is 1.96 or nearly 2; it is convenient to take this point as a limit in judging whether a deviation ought to be considered significant or not. Deviations exceeding twice the standard deviation are thus formally regarded as significant. Using this criterion we should be led to follow up a false indication only once in 22 trials, even if the statistics were the only guide available. Small effects will still escape notice if the data are insufficiently numerous to bring them out, but no lowering of the standard of significance would meet this difficulty. ↗

— Ronald A. Fisher

#statistics #design

Another mistaken notion connected with the law of large numbers is the idea that an event is more or less likely to occur because it has or has not happened recently. The idea that the odds of an event with a fixed probability increase or decrease depending on recent occurrences of the event is called the gambler's fallacy. For example, if Kerrich landed, say, 44 heads in the first 100 tosses, the coin would not develop a bias towards the tails in order to catch up! That's what is at the root of such ideas as "her luck has run out" and "He is due." That does not happen. For what it's worth, a good streak doesn't jinx you, and a bad one, unfortunately , does not mean better luck is in store. ↗

— Leonard Mlodinow

#luck #math #probability #statistics #math

Statistics, likelihoods, and probabilities mean everything to men, nothing to God. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#almighty #god #likelihood #might #omnipotence

Awards mean a lot, but they don't say it all. The people in baseball mean more to me than statistics. ↗

— Ernie Banks

#baseball #lot #me #mean #more

Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable. ↗

— Mark Twain

#more #pliable #statistics #stubborn

Coughs seem very common here, especially among the children, though people look strong and healthy, but in the absence of proper statistics one cannot undertake to say whether the district is a healthy one or not. ↗

— Edward Burnett Tylor

#among #cannot #children #common #district

Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business. ↗

— Zig Ziglar

#business #business owners #complain #complaining #customer