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Last active August 25, 2016 07:49
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Statistical Maxims
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statistical_maxims.md
  • Correlation is not causation (???)
  • No causation without manipulation. (Holland)
  • All models are wrong, some are useful. (Box)
  • Statistics is the science of uncertainty. (arguably Tukey)
  • Statistics is the science of learning from experience, especially experience that arrives a little bit at a time. (Efron)
  • Empirically observed covariation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for causality. (Tufte)
  • Correlation is not causation but it sure is a hint. (Tufte)
  • In a causal model, correlation implies causation (somewhere). (Paul F Christiano)
  • Reality is the ultimate judge of any theory (???)
  • The Folk Theorem of Statistical Computing: When you have computational problems, often there’s a problem with your model. (Gelman)
  • Researcher degrees of freedom do not feel like degrees of freedom because, conditional on the data, each choice appears to be deterministic. (Gelman, Garden of Forking Paths)
  • Multiple comparisons can be a big problem, without any implication that the researchers in question are cheating or stupid or trying to manipulate the system (Gelman, Garden of Forking Paths)
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