Ronald Aylmer Fisher

“Every experiment may be said to exist only in order to give the facts a chance of disproving the null hypothesis.”

“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.”

“Natural selection is a mechanism for generating an exceedingly high degree of improbability.”

“The analysis of variance is not a mathematical theorem, but rather a convenient method of arranging the arithmetic.”

“To call in the statistician after the experiment is done may be no more than asking him to perform a post-mortem examination: he may be able to say what the experiment died of.”

“The best time to plan an experiment is after you've done it.”

“...the null hypothesis is never proved or established, but is possibly disproved, in the course of experimentation.”

“Statistical procedure and experimental design are only two different aspects of the same whole, and that whole is the logical process of learning by experience.”

“We have the duty of formulating, of summarizing, and of communicating our conclusions, in intelligible form, in recognition of the right of other free minds to utilize them in making their own decisions.”