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Stephen M. Stigler
(1941 - )
American historian and statistician.
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Science Quotes by Stephen M. Stigler (1 quote)
Beware of the problem of testing too many hypotheses; the more you torture the data, the more likely they are to confess, but confessions obtained under duress may not be admissible in the court of scientific opinion.
— Stephen M. Stigler
In Matthew H. Nitecki and Antoni Hoffman (eds.), 'Testing Hypotheses or Fitting Models? Another Look at Mass Extinctions', Neutral Models in Biology (1987), 148.
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) -- 
