Well, we've got favourite statistics quotes. What about statistics jokes?
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10$\begingroup$ I made this community wiki as there is no correct answer. $\endgroup$– Rob HyndmanCommented Aug 6, 2010 at 2:44
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6$\begingroup$ It probably makes sense to leave cartoons in this question: stats.stackexchange.com/questions/423/… $\endgroup$– Jeromy AnglimCommented Aug 8, 2010 at 11:49
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40$\begingroup$ This is a popular and much-loved thread, even though it does not (on the face of it) seem to conform to SE standards for content. (Just what practical question is being asked here? :-) Some rules benefit from being ... bent ... once in a while. However, please don't use the existence of this thread to justify creating new ones that fall outside our guidelines unless you think there is a very good reason to do so! Questions about site policy are always appropriate in Meta and debate is warmly welcomed in chat. $\endgroup$– whuber ♦Commented Jan 24, 2012 at 15:34
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80 Answers
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A guy is flying in a hot air balloon and he's lost. So he lowers himself over a field and shouts to a guy on the ground:
"Can you tell me where I am, and which way I'm headed?" "Sure! You're at 43 degrees, 12 minutes, 21.2 seconds north; 123 degrees, 8 minutes, 12.8 seconds west. You're at 212 meters above sea level. Right now, you're hovering, but on your way in here you were at a speed of 1.83 meters per second at 1.929 radians"
"Thanks! By the way, are you a statistician?" "I am! But how did you know?"
"Everything you've told me is completely accurate; you gave me more detail than I needed, and you told me in such a way that it's no use to me at all!"
"Dang! By the way, are you a principal investigator?"
"Geeze! How'd you know that????"
"You don't know where you are, you don't know where you're going. You got where you are by blowing hot air, you start asking questions after you get into trouble, and you're in exactly the same spot you were a few minutes ago, but now, somehow, it's my fault!
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11$\begingroup$ Hilarious. I wonder what the PI and Statistician are doing in in Roseburg, Oregon? ;-) $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 24, 2019 at 18:27
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A statistician's wife had twins. He was delighted. He rang the minister who was also delighted. "Bring them to church on Sunday and we'll baptize them," said the minister. "No," replied the statistician. "Baptize one. We'll keep the other as a control."
STATS: The Magazine For Students of Statistics, Winter 1996, Number 15
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10$\begingroup$ I do not have enough reputation to downvote this! $\endgroup$– ΗλίαςCommented Oct 13, 2010 at 17:41
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4$\begingroup$ @Ηλίας you have enough now $\endgroup$ Commented May 29, 2018 at 22:20
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I saw this posted as a comment on here somewhere:
A: I used to think correlation implied causation. Then I took a statistics class. Now I don't.
B: Sounds like the class helped.
A: Well, maybe.
Title text: Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'.
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George Burns said that "If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age."
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68$\begingroup$ I remember seeing George Burns on TV being interviewed on his 100th birthday. He was puffing on a cigar. The interviewer made some comment about the incongruity of longevity and smoking. George Burns: "Twenty years ago my doctor told me that these cigars were going to kill me" Interviewer: "What does he say now?" George Burns: "I don't know. He's dead" $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 7, 2010 at 9:17
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Two statisticians were traveling in an airplane from LA to New York. About an hour into the flight, the pilot announced that they had lost an engine, but don’t worry, there are three left. However, instead of 5 hours it would take 7 hours to get to New York.
A little later, he announced that a second engine failed, and they still had two left, but it would take 10 hours to get to New York.
Somewhat later, the pilot again came on the intercom and announced that a third engine had died. Never fear, he announced, because the plane could fly on a single engine. However, it would now take 18 hours to get to New York.
At this point, one statistician turned to the other and said, “Gee, I hope we don’t lose that last engine, or we’ll be up here forever!”
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1$\begingroup$ I think originaly taken from Yihui XIE's Statistics Jokes Slides (yihui.name/en/attachment.php?f=attachment/jokes_yihui.pdf) $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 6, 2010 at 9:57
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10$\begingroup$ that link is broken now; please use yihui.name/en/2007/10/… thanks! $\endgroup$ Commented May 28, 2013 at 5:40
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7$\begingroup$ @SmallChess The statistician is naively extrapolating from previous observations that the number of engines is negatively associated with flight time. In reality, zero engines would quickly leading a crash. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 5, 2017 at 23:18
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$\begingroup$ @Kodiologist The one statistician who thought the airplane would stay up in the air forever was a Bayesian scholar. His colleague statistician, a well-known frequentist, answered him saying$-$We actually do not know if the airplane will stay in the air or not. $\endgroup$– CarlCommented Mar 8, 2018 at 6:19
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One passed by Gary Ramseyer:
Statistics play an important role in genetics. For instance, statistics prove that numbers of offspring is an inherited trait. If your parent didn't have any kids, odds are you won't either.
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11$\begingroup$ I liked "Map reduce, map reuse, map recycle". $\endgroup$– OgadayCommented Mar 9, 2016 at 16:51
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Statistics may be dull, but it has its moments.
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2$\begingroup$ hahaha... so simple. Me likey. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 29, 2014 at 4:21
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3$\begingroup$ Says a statistican to his friend: "counting on me is pure frequentism". $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 29, 2014 at 5:57
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A statistics major was completely hung over the day of his final exam. It was a true/false test, so he decided to flip a coin for the answers. The statistics professor watched the student the entire two hours as he was flipping the coin … writing the answer … flipping the coin … writing the answer. At the end of the two hours, everyone else had left the final except for the one student. The professor walks up to his desk and interrupts the student, saying, “Listen, I have seen that you did not study for this statistics test, you didn’t even open the exam. If you are just flipping a coin for your answer, what is taking you so long?” The student replies bitterly (as he is still flipping the coin), “Shhh! I am checking my answers!”
I've posted a few others on my blog.
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A mathematician, a physicist and a statistician went hunting for deer. When they chanced upon one buck lounging about, the mathematician fired first, missing the buck's nose by a few inches. The physicist then tried his hand, and missed the tail by a wee bit. The statistician started jumping up and down saying "We got him! We got him!"
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$\begingroup$ It amuses me how it is the statistician that doesn't understand statistics in this joke. $\endgroup$– GalenCommented Dec 2, 2023 at 0:06
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A statistician confidently tried to cross a river that was 1 meter deep on average. He drowned.
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16$\begingroup$ He should have measured the standard deviation. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 3, 2013 at 16:02
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47$\begingroup$ Sounds more like a science journalist to me... $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 20, 2014 at 1:23
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"If you torture data enough it will confess" one of my professors
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22$\begingroup$ Was his name Ronald Coase? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Coase#Quotes $\endgroup$– onestopCommented Oct 13, 2010 at 20:26
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I once asked out a statistician.
She failed to reject me.
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If you choose an answer to this question at random, what is the chance you will be correct?
A) 25%
B) 50%
C) 60%
D) 25%
(was published on ANZSTAT mailing list a couple of days ago).
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6$\begingroup$ And it soon got protected on math.SE, Does this question even have an answer? :) $\endgroup$– chlCommented Nov 2, 2011 at 8:25
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7$\begingroup$ To every simple question there is a simple answer. And it's wrong. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 4, 2011 at 4:19
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3$\begingroup$ This was subsequently discussed here at stats.stackexchange.com/questions/30325/…. $\endgroup$– whuber ♦Commented Jul 24, 2013 at 21:41
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3$\begingroup$ This is easy. The answer is 0. Now, if you replace C) with 0 then you have a real paradox. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 8, 2018 at 19:00
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This is actually a quote that (unintendedly) happens to be a joke:
"Every American should have above average income, and my Administration is going to see they get it." (Bill Clinton on campaign trail)
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14$\begingroup$ Based on Google, this quote sure looks apocryphal. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 2, 2012 at 16:18
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2$\begingroup$ I'm pretty sure British politicians occasionally fall into this trap, but, alas, I can find no link to back it up $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 28, 2013 at 19:16
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19$\begingroup$ One way to make this come to pass is to fine one individual ten trillion dollars. $\endgroup$– whuber ♦Commented Jul 24, 2013 at 21:40
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$\begingroup$ Related: stats.stackexchange.com/questions/535731/… $\endgroup$– GalenCommented Jul 26, 2021 at 23:29
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Why are open source statistical programming languages the best?
Because they R.
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I thought I'd start the ball rolling with my favourite.
"Being a statistician means never having to say you are certain."
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3$\begingroup$ My mom in law said to me that this is based on the line "being in love means you never need to say you are sorry". From a book called "love story" by arik sigall (I think). $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 6, 2010 at 18:33
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1$\begingroup$ @Tal Galili: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…. (My favorite is the line from What's Up, Doc?) $\endgroup$– mmyersCommented Aug 11, 2010 at 19:23
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One day there was a fire in a wastebasket in the office of the Dean of Sciences. In rushed a physicist, a chemist, and a statistician. The physicist immediately starts to work on how much energy would have to be removed from the fire to stop the combustion. The chemist works on which reagent would have to be added to the fire to prevent oxidation. While they are doing this, the statistician is setting fires to all the other wastebaskets in the office. "What are you doing?" the others demand. The statistician replies, "Well, to solve the problem, you obviously need a larger sample size."
Quoted by Steve Simon, www.pmean.com, and attributed to Gary C. Ramseyer's First Internet Gallery of Statistics Jokes at www.ilstu.edu/~gcramsey/Gallery.html.
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67% of statistics are made up.
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3$\begingroup$ Is this statistics also made up? ;) $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 23, 2012 at 19:26
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5$\begingroup$ Related: dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-05-08 $\endgroup$– JRNCommented Jan 3, 2013 at 13:21
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$\begingroup$ Aw, you can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forfty percent of all people know that. - Homer Simpson $\endgroup$– mehCommented Oct 5, 2017 at 23:57
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$\begingroup$ 114% of statistics are obviously wrong $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 7, 2022 at 13:23
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Here is a list of many fun statistics jokes (link)
Here are just a few:
Did you hear the one about the statistician? Probably....
It is proven that the celebration of birthdays is healthy. Statistics show that those people who celebrate the most birthdays become the oldest. -- S. den Hartog, Ph D. Thesis Universtity of Groningen.
A statistician is a person who draws a mathematically precise line from an unwarranted assumption to a foregone conclusion.
The average statistician is just plain mean.
And there is also the one from a TED talk:
"A friend asked my wife what I do. She answered that I model. Model what, she was asked - he models genes, she answered."
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1$\begingroup$ That link has since moved to se16.info/hgb/statjoke.htm $\endgroup$– HenryCommented May 23, 2013 at 22:57
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On average, every one of us has one testicle.
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What question does the Cauchy distribution hate to be asked?
Got a moment?
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9$\begingroup$ ...to which she replies, "well, at least half of one." $\endgroup$– cardinalCommented Sep 17, 2013 at 2:09
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$\begingroup$ Related: stats.stackexchange.com/q/569481/69508 $\endgroup$– GalenCommented Oct 16, 2022 at 5:47
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There are two kinds of people in the world:
- Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data sets.
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2$\begingroup$ @JohnM is it a genuine question? If your mind spontaneously completed with "... and those who cannot", then you are in the first data set. Else you are in the second. $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 22, 2021 at 18:48
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I found this list of quotes from Gelman's famous Bayesian Data Analysis book on this link. They are more like witty, stand-up one-liners but I enjoyed them a lot. Just a few below to whet your appetite:
1 "As you know from teaching introductory statistics, 30 is infinity."
2 "Suppose there's someone you want to get to know better, but you have to talk to all her friends too. They're like the nuisance parameters."
3 People don't go around introducing you to their ex-wives." (on why model improvement doesn't make it into papers)
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Statisticians do it with significance
Biostatisticians do it with power
Epidemiologists do it with populations
Bayesians do it with a posterior
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A statistic professor plans to travel to a conference by plane. When he passes the security check, they discover a bomb in his carry-on-baggage. Of course, he is hauled off immediately for interrogation.
"I don't understand it!" the interrogating officer exclaims. "You're an accomplished professional, a caring family man, a pillar of your parish - and now you want to destroy that all by blowing up an airplane!"
"Sorry", the professor interrupts him. "I had never intended to blow up the plane."
"So, for what reason else did you try to bring a bomb on board?!"
"Let me explain. Statistics shows that the probability of a bomb being on an airplane is 1/1000. That's quite high if you think about it - so high that I wouldn't have any peace of mind on a flight."
"And what does this have to do with you bringing a bomb on board of a plane?"
"You see, since the probability of one bomb being on my plane is 1/1000, the chance that there are two bombs is 1/1000000. If I already bring one, the chance of another bomb being around is actually 1/1000000, and I am much safer..."
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55$\begingroup$ This joke falls flat for me because I can't imagine a statistic professor saying this - a student who failed the course, sure. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 6, 2010 at 19:25
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10$\begingroup$ If we came up with some "other" group who claims to use statistics but does so incorrectly, we could come up with a slur for that group and make dirty jokes (like this one) about them. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 25, 2011 at 4:49
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3$\begingroup$ Not a very good statistician ... since the probability is still 1/1000 of there being another (hence 2) bomb on board $\endgroup$– tdcCommented Nov 22, 2011 at 9:18
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After enough alcohol all statisticians tend to become Bayesians: we start making inferences from our posterior
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Did you hear about the General Motors test for autocorrelation? Or the General Mills test for serial correlation?
