A Quote by Alfred E. Perlman

I cannot resist making the observation that some people use statistics as a drunk uses a lamppost - more to lean on than for illumination.

Alfred E. Perlman

Quote Topics

Cannot Drunk Illumination Lean Making More Observation People Resist Some Some People Statistics Than Use Uses

Quote Author

Alfred E. Perlman
November 22, 1902 - April 30, 1983

Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination.

Vin Scully

He uses statistics like a drunk uses lamp-posts, more for support than illumination.

Romano Prodi

Politicians use statistics in the same way that a drunk uses lamp-postsfor support rather than illumination.

Andrew Lang

We all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost – for support, not for illumination.

David Ogilvy

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts - for support rather than for illumination.

Andrew Lang

An unsophisticated forecaster uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts - for support rather than for illumination.

Andrew Lang

Creationists use facts the same way a drunk uses a lightpost: for support instead of illumination

Robert Green Ingersoll

I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.

David Ogilvy

I thought, Hey, maybe these people shouldn't be making up holidays to drink more. Maybe if they drank less they might be able to title their newspaper articles more specifically. For example, I would title this last article "Drunk Driver Hits Drunk Walker Drunkety-Drunk I'm So Drunk."

Mike Birbiglia

I do not ... reject the use of statistics in medicine, but I condemn not trying to get beyond them and believing in statistics as the foundation of medical science. ... Statistics ... apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still [uncertain or] indeterminate. ... There will always be some indeterminism ... in all the sciences, and more in medicine than in any other. But man's intellectual conquest consists in lessening and driving back indeterminism in proportion as he gains ground for determinism by the help of the experimental method.

Claude Bernard

Not the swart Pariah in some Indian grove, Lone, lean, and hunted by his brother's hate, Hath drunk so deep the cup of bitter fate As that poor wretch who cannot, cannot love: He bears a load which nothing can remove, A killing, withering weight.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

When there are conflicts of observation, when experiments cannot be replicated, scientists may then retreat to a study of the various specific observations so as to explain the conflict, in the course of which they would make use of the concept of observation, or of some specification of that concept.

Ernest Sosa

I doubt if there are many normal women who can resist looking at houses. I believe, in fact, that when a house is up for sale more than half the people who look over it are not prospective buyers, but merely ladies who cannot resist exploring someone else's house.

Mary Stewart

Observation is like a muscle. It grows stronger with use and atrophies without use. Exercise your observation muscle and you will become a more powerful decoder of the world around you.