Prove Anything Quotes (7 quotes)
… how the real proof should run. The main thing is the content, not the mathematics. With mathematics one can prove anything.
Commenting on a mistake in some work from Planck, for which “the result is correct but the proof is faulty.” As quoted in Denis Brian, Einstein—A Life (1996), 76.
A witty statesman said you might prove anything with figures.
In Chartism (1839, 1840), 9.
An experiment is never a failure solely because it fails to achieve predicted results. An experiment is a failure only when it also fails adequately to test the hypothesis in question, when the data it produces don’t prove anything one way or another.
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (1974), 102.
But it seems to me equally obvious that the orderliness is not all-pervasive. There are streaks of order to be found among the chaos, and the nature of scientific method is to seek these out and to stick to them when found and to reject or neglect the chaos. It is obvious that we have succeeded in finding some order in nature, but this fact in itself does not prove anything farther.
Scientific Method: An Inquiry into the Character and Validy of Natural Law (1923), 200.
I've come loaded with statistics, for I've noticed that a man can't prove anything without statistics. No man can.
Speech at the Republican Rally, Hartford Opera House (26 Oct 1880). In Mark Twain and Paul Fatout (ed.,) Mark Twain Speaking (2006), 140.
Not long ago the head of what should be a strictly scientific department in one of the major universities commented on the odd (and ominous) phenomenon that persons who can claim to be scientists on the basis of the technical training that won them the degree of Ph.D. are now found certifying the authenticity of the painted rag that is called the “Turin Shroud” or adducing “scientific” arguments to support hoaxes about the “paranormal” or an antiquated religiosity. “You can hire a scientist [sic],” he said, “to prove anything.” He did not adduce himself as proof of his generalization, but he did boast of his cleverness in confining his own research to areas in which the results would not perturb the Establishment or any vociferous gang of shyster-led fanatics. If such is indeed the status of science and scholarship in our darkling age, Send not to ask for whom the bell tolls.
In 'The Price of the Head', Instauration Magazine (Mar 1980).
Statistics can be made to prove anything—even the truth.
In Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips and Quotes (1995), 765.
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) -- 
