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Sir Samuel Wilks
(2 Jun 1824 - 8 Nov 1911)
English physician who was a physician at Guy's Hospital.
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Science Quotes by Sir Samuel Wilks (3 quotes)
Being also in accord with Goethe that discoveries are made by the age and not by the individual, I should consider the instances to be exceedingly rare of men who can be said to be living before their age, and to be the repository of knowledge quite foreign to the thought of the time. The rule is that a number of persons are employed at a particular piece of work, but one being a few steps in advance of the others is able to crown the edifice with his name, or, having the ability to generalise already known facts, may become in time to be regarded as their originator. Therefore it is that one name is remembered whilst those of coequals have long been buried in obscurity.
— Sir Samuel Wilks
In Historical Notes on Bright's Disease, Addison's Disease, and Hodgkin's Disease', Guy's Hospital Reports (1877), 22, 259-260.
Perhaps H. G. Wells was right when he said ‘statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write’!
— Sir Samuel Wilks
From address (28 Dec 1950) to the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Statistical Association in Chicago, when retiring as president of the association. Published in 'Undergraduate Statistical Education', Journal of the American Statistical Association (Mar 1951), 46, No. 253, 5. Note that Wilks is giving his own short paraphrase, and not a verbatim quote from H.G. Wells. Wilks' paraphrase has taken on a life of its own as a quote commonly seen attributed to H.G. Wells, without mention of Wilks, even though the paraphrase wording comes from Wilks’ presidential address. The origin quote comes from H.G. Wells, Mankind in the Making (1903), 204. See the full origin quote on this site Herbert George (H.G.) Wells Quotations page, beginning: “The new mathematics is a sort of supplement to language…”. In fact, Wells referred only to “mathematical analysis” such as “averages and maxima and minima” — and did not specify (more complex) “statistics” at all!
We profess to teach the principles and practice of medicine, or, in other words, the science and art of medicine. Science is knowledge reduced to principles; art is knowledge reduced to practice. The knowing and doing, however, are distinct. ... Your knowledge, therefore, is useless unless you cultivate the art of healing. Unfortunately, the scientific man very often has the least amount of art, and he is totally unsuccessful in practice; and, on the other hand, there may be much art based on an infinitesimal amount of knowledge, and yet it is sufficient to make its cultivator eminent.
— Sir Samuel Wilks
From H.G. Sutton, Abstract of Lecture delivered at Guy's Hospital by Samuel Wilks, 'Introductory to Part of a Course on the Theory and Practice of Medicine', The Lancet (24 Mar 1866), 1, 308
See also:
- 2 Jun - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Wilks's birth.
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) -- 
