Experimental Observations Are Only Experience Carefully Planned

No Aphorism Is More Frequently Repeated In Connection With Field Trials, Than That We Must Ask Nature Few Questions, Or, Ideally, One Question, At A Time. The Writer Is Convinced That This View Is Wholly Mistaken. Nature, He Suggests, Will Best Respond To A Logical And Carefully Thought Out Questionnaire; Indeed, If We Ask Her A Single Question, She Will Often Refuse To Answer Until Some Other Topic Has Been Discussed.

The Neutral Zone Of Selective Advantage In The Neighbourhood Of Zero Is Thus So Narrow That Changes In The Environment, And In The Genetic Constitution Of Species, Must Cause This Zone To Be Crossed And Perhaps Recrossed Relatively Rapidly In The Course Of Evolutionary Change, So That Many Possible Gene Substitutions May Have A Fluctuating History Of Advance And Regression Before The Final Balance Of Selective Advantage Is Determined.

I Believe Sanity And Realism Can Be Restored To The Teaching Of Mathematical Statistics Most Easily And Directly By Entrusting Such Teaching Largely To Men And Women Who Have Had Personal Experience Of Research In The Natural Sciences.

Modern Statisticians Are Familiar With The Notion That Any Finite Body Of Data Contains Only A Limited Amount Of Information On Any Point Under Examination; That This Limit Is Set By The Nature Of The Data Themselves, And Cannot Be Increased By Any Amount Of Ingenuity Expended In Their Statistical Examination: That The Statistician's Task, In Fact, Is Limited To The Extraction Of The Whole Of The Available Information On Any Particular Issue.

After All, It Is A Common Weakness Of Young Authors To Put Too Much Into Their Papers.