KARL PEARSON HALL
KARL PEARSON HALL
Then there's the one that if you laid every statistician on the face of the earth end to end you would't reach a conclusion.....Probably.*Again I could not find the attribution on this witty short one.
A guy was walking along and saw a frog sitting on the side of the road. The frog said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." The guy picked up the frog, looked it over, smiled, put it into his pocket and continued on his way.A few minutes later the frog said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess and stay with you for a week!" The guy took the frog out of his pocket, smiled, and put it back into his pocket.
A few minutes later the frog said "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess, stay with you for a week and do ANYTHING you want!!" The guy took the frog out of his pocket again, smiled at it, and put it back into his pocket.
Finally, the frog said, "I said that if you would just kiss me, I would turn into a beautiful princess and do ANYTHING you want for a whole week! Why won't you kiss me?" The guy said, "Look, I'm a statistician and I don't have time for girl friends, but a talking frog is kind of neat."
* A big thanks to Karen Scheltema, I think, for this romantic joke.
What does a statistician call it when the heads of 10 rats are cut off and 1 survives?
Nonsignificant.*Thanks to Chad Hartry a graduate student in my Stat II class.
These two friends decide to go rabbit hunting with bow and arrows. They convince their friend, the statistician, to come along since he doesn't get out very much. The three wait patiently out in the woods for a rabbit to pass by. Suddenly a rabbit bolts across a clearing some distance away and races toward a dense patch of trees. The first hunter whips out his bow, strings an arrow, and lets fly. "Darn," he cries, "the arrow was a foot short." Just then the rabbit bolts across the clearing from the other side of the woods. The second hunter whips out his bow, strings an arrow, and lets fly. "Darn" complains the second hunter," the arrow went a a foot long." The rabbit once more emerges from the woods and races across the clearing. the statistician starts to raise his bow and then lowers it with a contemplative expression. He takes out the stub of a pencil, finds a crumpled envelope in a pants pocket, and quickly executes some calculations on the back of the envelope. Then he looks up, smiling, as the rabbit disappears for the final time and waves the envelope in the direction of the other two hunters. "Look at this -- if you take the mean distance that the arrows went, we got the rabbit!"*A big thank you to Frederick M. Siem.
A man who travels a lot was concerned about the possibility of a bomb on board his plane. He determined the probability of this, found it to be low but not low enough for him. So now he always travels with a bomb in his suitcase. He reasons that the probability of two bombs being on board would be infinitesimal.*Contributed by Eugene A. Berg -Thanks! Taken from Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos.
"79.48% of all statistics are made up on the spot." - John A. Paulos*Thanks to Bill Weaver for this quickie!
PREAMBLE:It may help those who are unaware of what "epidemiologists" do to know that they are researchers who collect data about people and diseases and try to find patterns. This involves lots of data collection and statistical analysis usually. A simple (and early) example of what an epidemiologist does would be the first study to show that those who smoked were more likely to develope lung cancer etc. NOW FOR THE JOKE.....There is a group of five statisticians on a train. At the next stop, five epidemiologists get on. They all seem to know each other and start chatting. It transpires that all the epidemiologists have bought a ticket, but the statisticians have only bought one between the five of them. "Why did you do that?" asks one of the epidemiologists. "Surely you're going to get caught and thrown off the train?" "Just wait and see!", smiles one of the statisticians.
As the ticket inspector is approaching to check everyone's tickets, the statisticians all go off to the nearest toilet - the inspector passes the epidemiologists and inspects all their tickets then moves on and notices that the toilet is locked. "Tickets please!", shouts the inspector. One of the statisticians pushes their ticket under the toilet door, which the inspector checks and returns under the door. Once the inspector has gone, all the statisticians return to their seats to the awe and amazement of the epidemiologists. "That's incredibly clever!" says one of the epidemiologists.
A few weeks later they all find themselves on the same train again. They sit together and start chatting once more. "We've done what you suggested", says one of the epidemiologists. "And just bought one ticket between the five of us!" "Oh really", says one of the statisticians. "we haven't bought ANY tickets this time!" The epidemiologists look at each other in amazement. "OK, one ticket between you is fine but not buying any at all is ludicrous!"
As the ticket inspector approaches the epidemiologists hurry off to the toilet. Once they're inside, the statisticians follow them. "Tickets please!" shouts one of the statisticians. The ticket appears under the door and they take it away and all bundle into a different toilet. The inspector gets to the toilet with the epidemiologists in it. "Tickets please!" he shouts. No reply. "Tickets please!" The epidemiologists admit defeat and come out of the toilet only to be thrown off the train at the next station.
THE MORAL OF THIS STORY: Epidemiologists should not attempt to use statistical methods without fully understanding the theory behind them!
*Kudos to Dave Ewart from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, Oxford UK for this clever story.
Two unbiased estimators were sitting in a bar. The first says, "So how do you like married life?" The other replies, "It's pretty good if you don't mind giving up that one degreee of freedom!"*A big thank you to Bert Bishop for submitting this.
Statistics are like a bikini; What is revealed is interesting; What is concealed is crucial.Thanks go out to R. Taylor for this little tidbit.
PROOF THAT ALL ODD NUMBERS ARE PRIME:
Mathmatician -- 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, the rest follows by induction.
Statistician -- 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is expermental error so throw it out, 11 is prime, 13 is prime, the rest follows by induction.
Computer Scientist -- 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, ....
*Thanks Beth Clarkson from Boeing. I still think it is a good joke!
There were a physicist, a circus strong man, and a statistician marooned on a desert island. A box of canned food washes ashore, and the question is how to open the cans. The physicist suggests dropping them from the trees so that they break open. The strong man says that's too messy. Instead, he will rip the cans open with his bare hands. The statistician says that's still too messy, but he knows how to open the cans without making a mess. "First," he says "assume we have a can opener."*Electric or manual? Thanks Robert Frick for your contribution.
DESIGN CREEDI believe in Analysis of Variance, a gift of the Almighty bestowed upon grateful mankind by Divine Providence through the Inspiration of the venerable Sir R. A. Fisher, Knight of the Realm, and his Disciples.
I believe in the F-Ratio wherein the uppermost Mean Square Between overcomes the lowly Mean Square Within to yield Significant Blessings upon Faithful Researchers.
I shall continue to maximize Experimental Variance and minimize Error Variance until the last of my Degrees of Freedom be spent and Divine Control shall see fit to lift my soul from this vale of Errors and Confirm my Hypothesis in that Blessed Realm where all Variance be Systematic and Error Variance be nought.
*Thanks to Hugh Foley for this contribution.
Definition of a Statistician: A Mathematician broken down by age and sex.*Another Hugh Foley jewel.
THE TOP TEN REASONS TO BECOME A STATISTICIANDeviation is considered normal.
We feel complete and sufficient.
We are "mean" lovers.
Statisticians do it discretely and continuously.
We are right 95% of the time.
We can legally comment on someone's posterior distribution.
We may not be normal but we are transformable.
We never have to say we are certain.
We are honestly significantly different.
No one wants our jobs.*This one was sent anonomously through my Guestbook.
One day there was a fire in a wastebasket in the Dean's office and in rushed a physicist, a chemist, and a statistician. The physicist immediately starts to work on how much energy would have to be removed from the fire to stop the combustion. The chemist works on which reagent would have to be added to the fire to prevent oxidation. While they are doing this, the statistician is setting fires to all the other wastebaskets in the office. "What are you doing?" they demanded. "Well to solve the problem, obviously you need a large sample size" the statistician replies.*This is one of my favorites. Thanks again to Hugh Foley.
REMEMBER! Data is always plural!*Short but clever. A big thank you to John Roden. However, Steve Collins, a geologist, wrote me recently and proclaimed, "The jury are still out on that."
A statistician and a clinical professor are in a coffee shop. The latter looks up, splutters coffee, half chokes and says "That's my intern over there and she's gone and cut all her hair off". The statistician looks up and nods: "on this side at any rate".*I am still trying to convince myself that this is funny. Thanks anyway to Ronan Conroy in Dublin, Ireland for sharing this one.
And there was the statistician who was asked how her husband was and replied "Compared with whom?"*Almost forgot this quickee from the same Ronan Conroy. Thanks!
A hungry man went into a restaurant and noticed that the daily special was rabbit burgers, a real delicacy, for only 49 cents a burger. He was astounded at his good fortune to find such a bargain. When he inquired of the cook, the cook told him that in order to keep prices down he had to add some filler: in fact, only part of the burger was rabbit meat. The rest was horse meat."How much of each kind of meat is in a burger?" asked the customer.
The cook replied, "There is an equal amount of horse and rabbit in the burger: One horse, one rabbit."
*Thanks one more time Hugh Foley for this quasi-statistical joke.
Did you know that there are _three_ kinds of statisticians--those that can count and those that can't.*A big thank you to a fellow Hawkeye, John Creyer, for a great chuckle.
As Twain DIDN'T say: "liars, outliers, and out-and-out liars"! (Nor did Disraeli...)*Thanks to Robert Dawson for submitting this twist on an old standard.
A Bayesian and a Frequentist were to be executed. The judge asked them what were their last wishes. The Bayesian replied that he would like to give the Frequentist one more lecture. The judge granted the Bayesian's wish and then turned to the Frequentist for his last wish. The Frequentist quickly responded that he wished to hear the lecture again and again and again and again........*Thanks to Xiao-Li Meng for this subtle humor.
What do statistics professors get when they drink too much?Kurtosis of the Liver!
*This one has been floating in my files unnoticed for sometime. A belated thank you goes out to David Coursey.
Anyone who can not cope with mathematics (statistics) is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.*This is a quote by Robert Heinlein with the parenthetical expression added by me. The question is how do these subhumans view mathematicians and statisticians?
"When she told me I was average, she was just being mean".* A big thanks for this quickee to Mike Beckman who is working on his Ph.D at Virginia Tech. Just wondered Mike if one of your professors told you this?
Old statisticians never die they just become nonsignificant.*This is my own quote. My students tell me I am only significant at the .10 level so how am I to interpret this?
What's the question the Cauchy distribution hates the most?
Got a moment?*This is only funny if you are steeped in mathematical statistics. Thanks go out to S. Gomatam for contributing this odd one.
How many statisticians does it take to screw in a light bulb?We really don't know yet. Our entire sample was skewed to the left!
*This is my own little gem. I hope this one doesn't go RIGHT by you.
Did you know that if you torture the data long enough, that eventually it will confess?*Does this include using the Chinese water torture? Thanks Cliff Lee from Caterpillar for passing this one my way.
If the 2 nd momemt about the mean is the variance, the 3 rd moment is skewness, and the 4 th moment is kurtosis, what is the k th moment?That's easy.... the k th moment is a KODAK MOMENT!!!
*I better pause a MOMENT and duck before I tell you this one is mine.
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