David Salsburg
More books by David Salsburg…
“Probit analysis provides a mathematical foundation for the doctrine first established by the sixteenth-century physician Paracelsus: “Only the dose makes a thing not a poison.” Under the Paracelsus doctrine, all things are potential poisons if given in a high enough dose, and all things are nonpoisonous if given in a low enough dose. To this doctrine, Bliss added the uncertainty associated with individual results. One reason why many foolish users of street drugs die or become very sick on cocaine or heroin or speed is that they see others using the drugs without being killed. They are like Bliss’s insects. They look around and see some of their fellow insects still alive. However, knowing that some individuals are still living provides no assurance that a given individual will survive. There is no way of predicting the response of a single individual.”
― The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century
― The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century
“In high school algebra, someone had already worked out the formulas. The teacher knew them or could find them in the teacher’s manual for the textbook. Imagine a word problem where nobody knows how to turn it into a formula, where some of the information is redundant and should not be used, where crucial information is often missing, and where there is no similar example worked out earlier in the textbook. This is what happens when one tries to apply statistical models to real-life problems.”
― The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century
― The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century
“For instance is no proof.”
― The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century
― The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century
Topics Mentioning This Author
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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The Life of a Boo...: Jami's 2018 12+4 Challenge | 74 | 79 | Jan 02, 2019 01:50PM | |
The History Book ...: MATHEMATICS | 84 | 473 | Jan 29, 2019 07:34PM |
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