Quotes from Ronald Fisher

To call in the statistician after the experiment is done may be no more than asking him to perform a post-mortem examination: he may be able to say what the experiment died of.

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.

Inductive inference is the only process known to us by which essentially new knowledge comes into the world.

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.

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.

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.

The analysis of variance is not a mathematical theorem, but rather a convenient method of arranging the arithmetic.

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.

The best time to plan an experiment is after you've done it.

Natural selection is not evolution.

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.

The academic mind, as we know, is sometimes capable of assuming an aggressive attitude. The official mind, on the contrary, is and has to be, expert in the art of self-defence.

In scientific subjects, the natural remedy for dogmatism has been found in research.

The million, million, million ... to one chance happens once in a million, million, million ... times no matter how surprised we may be that it results in us.

Faith does not mean credulity...