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A. W. F. Edwards
(4 Oct 1935 - )
British statistician who trained as a geneticist, but self-taught statistics. He has published books on mathematical genetics, Pascal's Triangle, statics, Venn diagrams, and in 2004 ao-authored A Century of Mendelism in Human Genetics with Milo Meynes.
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Science Quotes by A. W. F. Edwards (3 quotes)
The scientist must be the judge of his own hypotheses, not the statistician. The perpetual sniping which statisticians suffer at the hands of practising scientists is largely due to their collective arrogance in presuming to direct the scientist in his consideration of hypotheses; the best contribution they can make is to provide some measure of ‘support’, and the failure of all but a few to admit the weaknesses of the conventional approaches has not improved the scientists’ opinion.
— A. W. F. Edwards
In Likelihood (1972), 34.
There comes a time in the life of a scientist when he must convince himself either that his subject is so robust from a statistical point of view that the finer points of statistical inference he adopts are irrelevant or that the precise mode of inference he adopts is satisfactory.
— A. W. F. Edwards
Opening sentence, 'Preface', Likelihood (1972), xi.
What used to be called judgment is now called prejudice, and what used to be called prejudice is now called a null hypothesis.
— A. W. F. Edwards
In Likelihood (1972), 180.
See also:
- 4 Oct - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Edwards's birth.
- Likelihood, by A. W. F. Edwards,. - book suggestion.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
