“If the chance of error alone were the sole basis for evaluating methods of inference, we would never reach a decision, but would merely keep increasing the sample size indefinitely.”

— C. West Churchman

Source: 1940s - 1950s, Theory of Experimental Inference (1948), p. 255; cited in The Journal of the American Forensic Association. Vol 20-22 (1984), p. 180

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If the chance of error alone were the sole basis for evaluating methods of inference, we would never reach a decision, …" by C. West Churchman?

C. West Churchman 64

American philosopher and systems scientist 1913–2004

Related quotes

“Mere chance … alone would never account for so habitual and large an amount of difference as that between varieties of the same species.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter IV: "Natural Selection", page 111 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=126&itemID=F373&viewtype=image

“If the Darwinian package were correct, then we would expect to see the simultaneous appearance in the archeological and fossil records of evidence for bipedality, technology and increased brain size. We don't.”

Richard Leakey (1944) Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and politician

The Origin of Humankind (1994)

“some evidence is available to indicate that, in India, an increase in the income of the poorer people leads to an increase in the size of the family; and also that this tapers off after a certain critical level of income is attained, and is followed by a reduction in the size of the family at higher levels of living When a sufﬁcient number of people reach the critical income, there would be a gradual decrease in the average birth rate with further increase in income.”

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1893–1972) Indian scientist

Quote, Professor P.C. Mahalanobis and the Development of Population Statistics in lndia

“Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Cassandra (1860)
Context: The progressive world is necessarily divided into two classes — those who take the best of what there is and enjoy it — those who wish for something better and try to create it. Without these two classes the world would be badly off. They are the very conditions of progress, both the one and the other. Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.

“If you were part of a group there was always the chance that the predator would take the next guy, not you. It was a cold-blooded lottery that paid off often enough to be worthwhile adapting for.
But there were disadvantages to group living: mainly, if there were large numbers of you, there was increased competition for food. As that competition resolved itself, the inevitable result was social complexity—and the size of the adapids’ brains had increased so that they were capable of handling that complexity. Then, of course, they were forced to become even more efficient at searching for food to fuel those big brains.
It was the way of the future. As primate societies became ever more complex, a kind of cognitive arms race would continue, increasing smartness fueled by increasing social complications.”

Stephen Baxter book Evolution

Source: Evolution (2002), Chapter 5 “The Time of Long Shadows” section I (p. 113)

“The chances for a problem to rise on the decision agenda are dramatically increased if a solution is attached.”

John W. Kingdon (1940) American political scientist

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 6, The Policy Primeval Soup, p. 143

“In the second place, a system would involve more variables than those which may be supposed to enter into demand relationships, and so the preliminary work of estimating the necessary time series would also be increased. In the third place, in the simultaneous method of estimation the estimates of the original parameters come to depend on most of the remaining estimates, and so it is quite likely that they will have large sampling variances.”

Richard Stone (1913–1991) British economist, Nobel Memorial Prize winner

Studies in the National Income and Expenditure of the United Kingdom, 1954

“Ralph… would treat the day's decisions as though he were playing chess. The only trouble was that he would never be a very good chess player.”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies

“I would say, on the basis of having observe a thousand people in the experiment and having my own intuition shaped and informed by these experiments, that if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town.”

Stanley Milgram (1933–1984) Social psychologist

Interview on Sixty Minutes (31 March 1979)
Actual quote, which can be heard in Discovery Channel's Curiosity: How Evil Are You?: I would say -- on the basis of having observed a thousand people in the experiment, and having my own intuition shaped and informed by these experiments -- that if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would be able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town.

“Low sample size—one of the reasons why magic and science are hard to reconcile.”

Ben Aaronovitch book Whispers Under Ground

Source: Whispers Under Ground (2012), Chapter 10, “Russell Square” (p. 106)

“If the chance of error alone were the sole basis for evaluating methods of inference, we would never reach a decision, but would merely keep increasing the sample size indefinitely.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

C. West Churchman 64

Related quotes

Related topics