Chance News 74

Quotations

"The government are very keen on amassing statistics. They collect them, add them, raise them to the nth power, take the cube root and prepare wonderful diagrams. But you must never forget that every one of these figures comes in the first instance from the village watchman, who just puts down what he damn pleases."

Sir Josiah Charles Stamp [1880-1941]

As quoted by Howard Wainer, in Picturing the Uncertain World Princeton University Press, 2009, p. 23.

Submitted by Paul Alper