“If the assumptions are wrong, the conclusions aren't likely to be very good.”

—  Robert E. Machol

Cited in: Norman Pascoe (2011) Reliability Technology: Principles and Practice of Failure Prevention in Electronic Systems. Ch. 5
Principles of Operations Research (1975)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update March 30, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If the assumptions are wrong, the conclusions aren't likely to be very good." by Robert E. Machol?
Robert E. Machol photo
Robert E. Machol24
American systems engineer 1917–1998

Related quotes

Kim Harrison photo

“Rachel, Rachel, Rachel,” he said, very still and unmoving. “Always jumping to the wrong conclusion. You’re like a frog, you know.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Pale Demon

“The automatic assumption that everything a unionist does is wrong is not good for us. Like, how could everything that unionists do be wrong? I mean, they're not a special people. They're not a kind of special bad people.”

Eoghan Harris (1943) Irish journalist

Questions And Answers, Monday, 19 July 1999

Wendell Berry photo

“We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"A Native Hill"
The Long-Legged House (1969)
Context: We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us... We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.

“It is a common fallacy to believe that the law of large numbers acts as a force endowed with memory seeking to return to the original state, and many wrong conclusions have been drawn from this assumption.”

William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician

Source: An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition), Chapter V, Conditional Probability, Stochastic Independence, p. 136.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo

“What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don't deny we sometimes draw the right conclusions, but don't we just as often draw the wrong ones?”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

F 123
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

Antonin Scalia photo

“If you're going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you're not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you're probably doing something wrong.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Speech at Chapman Law School http://lawandordnance.com/oldbrass/2005/08/the_quotable_sc.php (August 2005). <br class="br">2000s

“The use of "nurture" as a synonym for "environment" is based on the assumption that what influences children's development, apart from their genes, is the way their parents bring them up. I call this the nurture assumption. Only after rearing two children of my own and coauthoring three editions of a college textbook on child development did I begin to question this assumption. Only recently did I come to the conclusion that it is wrong.”

Judith Rich Harris book The Nurture Assumption

The Nurture Assumption, chapter 1, p. 2. http://books.google.com/books?id=-uKBJRMJBjcC&amp;printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&amp;q=%22nurture%22%20as%20a%20synonym%20for%20%22environment%22&amp;f=false http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/harris-nurture.html

George Santayana photo

“That life is worth living is the most necessary of assumptions and, were it not assumed, the most impossible of conclusions.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905-1906), Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense

“There are here two assumptions about 'evaluations ', which I will call assumption (1) and assumption (2). Assumption (1) is that some individual may, without logical error, base his beliefs about matters of value entirely on premises which no one else would recognise as giving any evidence at all. Assumption (2) is that, given the kind of statement which other people regard as evidence for an evaluative conclusion, he may refuse to draw the conclusion because this does not count as evidence for him.”

Philippa Foot (1920–2010) British philosopher

"Moral Beliefs"

A. P. Herbert photo

“The whole Constitution has been erected upon the assumption that the King not only is capable of doing wrong but is more likely to do wrong than other men if he is given the chance.”

A. P. Herbert book Uncommon Law

"What Is the Crown?"
Uncommon Law (1935)

Related topics