Babbage, Charles (1792-1871)
Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan (1859-1930)
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
Scandal in Bohemia.
Huxley, Thomas Henry (1825-1895)
This seems to be one of the many cases in which the admitted accuracy of mathematical
processes is allowed to throw a wholly inadmissible appearance of authority over the
results obtained by them. Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship,
which grinds your stuff of any degree of fineness; but, nevertheless, what you get out
depends on what you put in; and as the grandest mill in the world will not extract wheat
flour from peascods, so pages of formulae will not get a definite result out of loose
data.
Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, 25,1869.
Huxley, Thomas Henry (1825-1895)
The mathematician starts with a few propositions, the proof of which is so obvious
that they are called selfevident, and the rest of his work consists of subtle deductions
from them. The teaching of languages, at any rate as ordinarily practised, is of the same
general nature authority and tradition furnish the data, and the mental operations are
deductive.
"Scientific Education -Notes of an After-dinner Speech." Macmillan's Magazine
Vol XX, 1869.
Karlin, Samuel (1923 - )
The purpose of models is not to fit the data but to sharpen the questions.
11th R A Fisher Memorial Lecture, Royal Society 20, April 1983.