It is essential that this fundamental fallacy in the
use of statistics should be got somehow into the modern mind. Such people
must be made to see the point, which is surely plain enough, that it is
useless to have exact figures if they are exact figures about an inexact
phrase. If I say, "There are five fools in Action," it is surely quite
clear that, though no mathematician can make five the same as four or six,
that will not stop you or anyone else from finding a few more fools in
Action.
-Eugenics and Other Evils (1922)
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