No isolated experiment, however significant in itself, can suffice for the experimental demonstration of any natural phenomenon; for the "one chance in a million" will undoubtedly occur, with no less and no more than its appropriate frequency, however surprised we may be that it should occur to us.
Interpretation
No single experiment can prove a natural phenomenon, as rarity and frequency balance in nature.
Ronald Fisher emphasizes that individual experiments, no matter how groundbreaking, are not enough to demonstrate the validity of a natural phenomenon. He points out that unexpected outcomes, though surprising, are part of the natural order and will occur at their expected rates. This conveys the importance of replication and statistical validity in scientific research.
In practice
In a scientific conference discussing the importance of experimental replication.
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.
To consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him to conduct a post mortem examination. He can perhaps say what the experiment died of.
There is no scientific reason to think that we, even with space travel, are going to survive as a species for ever, certainly not by biting off the hand that feeds us, which is exactly what we are doing.
No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children...I would want to argue that the truth of evolution is more interesting and more poetic
We only know God in His works, but we are forced by science to admit and to believe with absolute confidence in a Directive Power-in an influence other than physical, or dynamical, or electrical forces.
In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.
It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature.
People credit me for making the universe interesting when in fact the universe is inherently interesting, and I'm merely revealing that fact. I don't think I'm anything special for this to happen.
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