Statistics came well before computers. It would be very different if we had first had computers and then statistics. We’d have a much more sensible view of statistics, which is that it’s an informational technology.Charles Wheelan
Statistically minded executives are prone to ‘Analysis Paralysis.’ They are so obsessed with getting the perfect answer, they wait too long for an answer that is ‘good enough.’Charles Wheelan
Data analysis tries to find what you expect. An exploratory analysis tries to find what you didn’t expect.Charles Wheelan
One of the first things we should look for when we see a lot of data is some kind of order or structure, do the data appear to behave in a regular, predictable manner?Charles Wheelan
A lot of bad decision-making comes from people who have a conclusion and then look for reasons to support it.Charles Wheelan
The best antidote to fear and dread generated by data is to understand what you’re working with, instead of imagining things that aren’t soCharles Wheelan
Practical statistics is about having the curiosity to ask the right questions and then having the perseverance to seek answers amid a sea of numbers.Charles Wheelan
No amount of sophistication is going to allay the fact that all your knowledge is about the past and all your decisions are about the future.Charles Wheelan
Acting on good data is far better than acting on no data or false data.Charles Wheelan
The Central Limit Theorem is the reason why many statistical techniques work at all.Charles Wheelan
Randomness is not the same as chaos. Random data do behave in a predictable and regular fashion when we step back and look at the whole.Charles Wheelan
The underlying logic of hypothesis testing is to avoid drawing big conclusions from small data.Charles Wheelan
Causal relationships are often complex, and one simple bivariate relationship may be spurious because of other, lurking variables.Charles Wheelan
The most challenging part of any statistics problem is figuring out what data you need, and understanding what those data mean.Charles Wheelan
The power of statistics comes not from complicated statistical software, but from the simple ideas underlying those tools.Charles Wheelan