Edmund Pellegrino quotes

“Measurement has too often been the leitmotif of many investigations rather than the experimental examination of hypotheses. Mounds of data are collected, which are statistically decorous and methodologically unimpeachable, but conclusions are often trivial and rarely useful in decision making. This results from an overly rigorous control of an insignificant variable and a widespread deficiency in the framing of pertinent questions. Investigators seem to have settled for what is measurable instead of measuring what they would really like to know.”
-- Edmund Pellegrino

#Knowledge Quotes #Data Quotes #Decision Quotes

“It is an anomaly that information, the one thing most necessary to our survival as choosers of our own way, should be a commodity subject to the same merchandising rules as chewing gum.”

“There are men that teach best by not teaching at all.”

“It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.”

“Rational behavior ... depends upon a ceaseless flow of data from the environment. It depends upon the power of the individual to predict, with at least a fair success, the outcome of his own actions. To do this, he must be able to predict how the environment will respond to his acts. Sanity, itself, thus hinges on man's ability to predict his immediate, personal future on the basis of information fed him by the environment.”

“While traditional BI is interested in the 'what and the where,' data scientists are interested in the 'how and why'.”

“On the question of whether a behavioral science can in principle be constructed, we shall take no sides. That some kinds of human behavior can be described and even predicted in terms of objectively verifiable and quantifiable data seems to us to have been established.”

Source : Anatol Rapoport, Albert M. Chammah (1965). “Prisoner's Dilemma: A Study in Conflict and Cooperation”, p.5, University of Michigan Press

“The key to making healthy decisions is to respect your future self. Honor him or her. Treat him or her like you would treat a friend or a loved one.”

Source : A. J. Jacobs (2012). “Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection”, p.48, Simon and Schuster

“You can go left, you can go right, I don't give a damn. Just make a decision.”

“At a certain point you have to make a decision in your life about where will you best serve, and I decided that I would best serve as a producer as opposed to a studio executive. There are many upsides to being the studio executive, but one of the downsides is that you get removed from the actual process of making the movie.”

“Be brave and fearless to know that even if you do make a wrong decision, you're making it for a good reason.”