Upstairs Quotes (2 quotes)
I think it’s in my basement… let me go upstairs and check. —M.C. Escher [joke attribution]
Widely seen feral on the web. Webmaster has not yet found a primary source for this a quote, and regards it as an anonymous joke, with a false attribution to Escher as part of the joke (because Escher’s art works are known for distorted reality). Compare the authentic quote, “Are you really sure that a floor can’t also be a ceiling?” on the M.C. Escher Quotes page of this site.
In a Dublin hospital, many years ago, it was noticed that the death-rate was markedly higher in the ground-floor wards than it was in the wards upstairs. This fact was commented on in an official report, and marked down as requiring investigation. Then it was discovered that, when new patients came in, the porter of the hospital was in the habit of putting them upstairs if they could walk by themselves, and downstairs if they could not.
From 'Figures Can Lie', Science Digest (Sep 1951), 30, No. 3, 53. (As condensed from The Listener). Excerpted in Meta Riley Emberger and Marian Ross Hall, Scientific Writing (1955), 407.
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) -- 
