Holmes’s Second Law
Sherlock Holmes
It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data.
Mencken’s Second Law
H. L. Mencken
Nine times out of ten in the arts, as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.
Pareto’s Law
Vilfredo Pareto
Twenty percent of the customers account for eighty percent of the turnover; twenty percent of the components account for eighty percent of the cost etc.
Pascal’s Law
Blaise Pascal
The greater the intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no differences between men.
Runyon’s First Law
Damon Runyon
All life is 6 to 5 against.
The Dixon Effect
John Allen Paulos
If you make enough predictions a few are bound to be correct. The hits are likely to be remembered, the misses forgotten, and you will win fame and possibly fortune as a forecaster of the future.
The Ashley-Perry Statistical Axioms
G. O. Ashley
1. Numbers are tools, not rules.
2. Numbers are symbols for things; the number and the symbol are not the same.
3. Skill in manipulating numbers is a talent, not evidence of divine guidance.
4. Like other occult techniques of divination, the statistical method has a private jargon deliberately contrived to obscure its methods from non-practitioners.
5. The product of an arithmetical computation is the answer to an equation; it is not the solution to a problem.
6. Arithmetical proofs of theorems that do not have arithmetical bases prove nothing.
