Quotes on data and thinking
I've run across some quotes today that tie in with a recent thread of thinking on the idea of "being scientific" and using evidence as the basis of decisions and testing your hypotheses.
A problem without data is complaining; data without action is waste.
via Jamie Flinchbaugh's IndustryyWeek piece, Don't Waste Your Metrics. He doesn't think it is a specific quote, and I couldn't find a match. But that led me to a couple more.
Never theorize before you have data. Invariably, you end up twisting facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
- Sherlock HolmesWhen you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
- Max Planck
Always check your assumptions, test your ideas, and … THINK.
3 Comment(s)
Thanks, James! Of course, Sherlock would spell it that way. I found it on a website of American English origin, so we have the other spelling.
Good quotes. Now if all lawyers would subscribe to the merret of these quotes and decline cases they do not think are ethically right.
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On a similar theme
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen ~ Albert Einstein
And at the risk of being a pedant, I suspect Sherlock Holmes spelt theorise with an S
How is that for a linguistic inferiority complex?
James