Friday quote: the handmaiden and the whore
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Because it is Friday and because we collect quotes.
If mathematics is the handmaiden of science, statistics is the whore: all that scientists are looking for is a quick fix without the encumbrance of a meaningful relationship. Statisticians are second-class mathematicians, third-rate scientists and fourth-rate thinkers. They are the hyenas, jackals and vultures of the scientific ecology: picking over the bones and carcasses of the game that the big cats, the biologists, the physicists and the chemists, have brought down.
Statistics is a wonderful discipline. It has it all: mathematics and philosophy, analysis and empiricism, as well as applicability, relevance and the fascination of data. It demands clear thinking, good judgement and flair. Statisticians are engaged in an exhausting but exhilarating struggle with the biggest challenge that philosophy makes to science: how do we translate information into knowledge?
―Stephen Senn: Dicing with Death: Chance, Risk and Health
Which one of the two views are closest to your opinion?
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