This document contains a collection of quotes and statistics related to data and statistics. Some of the key points made in the quotes include: - Statistics can be used to prove anything, even if the data is inaccurate or used to fit a predetermined narrative. Several quotes caution about using statistics without proper context or to draw false conclusions. - Collecting more data helps provide better insights, but data must be used responsibly and to tell the truth rather than to push certain agendas. - Both qualitative individual stories and quantitative statistics are important to understand issues fully. Numbers alone do not provide full context.

1. STATISTICS & DATA
2022.01.14 /oma@omacinem.fr

2. In all statistics, the inaccuracy of the number is offset by the
precision of the decimal places.
(Alfred Sauvy)

3. I gather, young man, that you wish
to be a Member of Parliament.
The first lesson that you must learn
is, when I call for statistics about
the rate of infant mortality, what I
want is proof that fewer babies
died when I was Prime Minister
than when anyone else was Prime
Minister.
That is a political statistic.
(Winston Churchill)

4. - approche pifométrique ! dis-je
sans ambage.
- pas du tout ! c’est un "encadrement
statistique de nos perceptions"
rétorque le consultant.

6. Statistics will prove anything,
even the truth.
(Noel Moynihan)

7. The statistician is a man who
does a fair calculation starting
from dubious beginnings to get
a false result.
(Jean Delacour)
Statistics is the first of the
inaccurate sciences.
(Edmond et Jules de Goncourt)

8. It is proven that the celebration of
birthdays is healthy.
Statistics show that those people
who celebrate
the most birthdays
become the oldest.
(S. Den Hartog)
Statistics have shown that mortality
in the army
increases significantly in wartime.
(Alphonse Allais)

9. The statistics have one major peculiarity: they are never the same according to
the color/side of the politician who show them. (Jacques Mailhot)

10. Without Big Data , companies are blind and deaf,
wandering out onto the web like deer on a freeway. (Geoffrey Moore)

12. Statistics cannot be
any smarter than
the people who use
them.
And in some cases,
they can make
smart people do
dumb things.
(Charles Wheelan)
Politicians know poverty only
through statistics.
We don't cry over numbers.
(Abbé Pierre)

13. If you torture the data long enough,
it will confess to anything.
(Ronald H. Coase)
Errors using inadequate data are much
less than those using no data at all.
(Charles Babbage)

15. Smart data structures
and dumb code works
a lot better than the
other way around.
(Eric Raymond, «The Cathedral
and the Bazaar»)

17. Data must be used to tell the truth,
not to call to action,
no matter how noble the intentions.
(Hans Rosling, #FactFullness)
I have no data yet. It is a capital
mistake to theorize before one
has data. Insensibly one begins to
twist facts to suit theories instead
of theories to suit facts.
(Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

18. Just as I have urged you to look
behind the statistics at the
individual stories,
I also urge you to look behind the
individual stories at the
statistics.
The world cannot be understood
without numbers.
And it cannot be understood
with numbers alone.
(Hans Rosling) #FactFullness
Another view on stats :
200 countries, 200 years, 4 min
The best stats you've ever seen

19. You need to think about a problem about a week, my maximum. On
the second week and on every week thereafter you should be trying to
change something to make something better to deliver a little bit more
quality to real people and in doing so not only will the value be
delivered but you will learn from trying to deliver value what it takes to
deliver value, little things like the technology isn’t enough, you have to
motivate people to fit with their culture, and something has to learn
the hard way by actually doing it.
… decomposing things into subsets is a good process for defining
them, understanding and communicate about them but at some point
moving to quantifying the ideas is a pretty good idea because numbers
communicate variable ideas much better than words.
(Tom Gilb, excerpts from Quantify the un-quantifiable)