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Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data QUOTES

Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data QUOTES

1 " It’s easy to lie with statistics, but it’s hard to tell the truth without them. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

2 " The greatest risks are never the ones you can see and measure, but the ones you can’t see and therefore can never measure. The ones that seem so far outside the boundary of normal probability that you can’t imagine they could happen in your lifetime—even though, of course, they do happen, more often than you care to realize. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

3 " Probability doesn’t make mistakes; people using probability make mistakes. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

4 " So it is with statistics; no amount of fancy analysis can make up for fundamentally flawed data. Hence the expression “garbage in, garbage out. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

5 " Here is one of the most important things to remember when doing research that involves regression analysis: Try not to kill anyone. You can even put a little Post-it note on your computer monitor: “Do not kill people with your research.” Because some very smart people have inadvertently violated that rule. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

6 " (As a rule of thumb, the sample size must be at least 30 for the central limit theorem to hold true.) This "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

7 " Consider a nonstatistics example: Did the U.S. invasion of Iraq make America safer? There is only one intellectually honest answer: We will never know. The reason we will never know is that we do not know—and cannot know—what would have happened if the United States had not invaded Iraq. True, the United States did not find weapons of mass destruction. But it is possible that on the day after the United States did not invade Iraq Saddam Hussein could have climbed into the shower and said to himself, “I could really use a hydrogen bomb. I wonder if the North Koreans will sell me one?” After that, who knows? "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

8 " the most dangerous kind of job stress stems from having “low control” over one’s responsibilities. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

9 " Regression analysis is the hydrogen bomb of the statistics arsenal. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

10 " The [Value at Risk model] was like a faulty speedometer, which is arguably worse than no speedometer at all. If you place too much faith in the broken speedometer, you will be oblivious to other signs that your speed is unsafe. In contrast, if there is no speedometer at all, you have no choice but to look around for clues as to how fast you are really going. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

11 " Descriptive statistics exist to simplify, which always implies some loss of nuance or detail. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

12 " The good news is that these descriptive statistics give us a manageable and meaningful summary of the underlying phenomenon. That’s what this chapter is about. The bad news is that any simplification invites abuse. Descriptive statistics can be like online dating profiles: technically accurate and yet pretty darn misleading. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

13 " If you consider people, not countries, global inequality is falling rapidly. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

14 " Here is one of the most important things to remember when doing research that involves regression analysis: Try not to kill anyone. You can even put a little Post-it note on your computer monitor: “Do not kill people with your research. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

15 " Statistics is like a high-caliber weapon: helpful when used correctly and potentially disastrous in the wrong hands. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

16 " The world is producing more and more data, ever faster and faster. Yet, as the New York Times has noted, “Data is merely the raw material of knowledge.”3* Statistics is the most powerful tool we have for using information to some meaningful end, "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

17 " Os maiores riscos nunca são aqueles que você pode ver e mensurar, mas aqueles que você não pode ver e, portanto, jamais poderá mensurar. Aqueles que parecem tão distantes, fora das fronteiras da probabilidade normal, que você não consegue nem imaginar que possam acontecer na sua vida – mesmo que, é claro, aconteçam, com mais frequência do que você se dá conta. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

18 " Several studies of thousands of British civil servants (the Whitehall studies) have found that workers who have little control over their jobs—meaning they have minimal say over what tasks are performed or how those tasks are carried out—have a significantly higher mortality rate than other workers in the civil service with more decision-making authority. "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

19 " our ability to analyze data has grown far more sophisticated than our thinking about what we ought to do with the results. You "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

20 " Recognize that your own motivation, ambition, and talents will determine your success more than the college name on your diploma.”8 "

― Charles Wheelan , Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data