Adjustment Quote by Charles Babbage
“Trimming consists of clipping off little bits here and there from those observations which differ most in excess from the mean, and in sticking them onto those which are too small; a species of 'equitable adjustment,' as a radical would term it, which cannot be admitted in science.”
About This Quote
Source Essay: On the Economy of Machinery, 1840
Adjusting data by trimming extremes distorts scientific validity; true analysis requires unbiased measurement.
In simple terms: Trimming data misleads science.
Key Takeaway
Maintain data integrity.
Themes
science
methodology
statistics
Mood
analytical
cautious
Type
methodological
critical
When to use this quote
- research
- quality control
- policy making
- education
Key Concepts
bias
measurement error
data integrity
Questions to Reflect On
- When is it appropriate to remove outliers?
- How can we balance data cleaning with preserving truth?
A Different Perspective
Over‑trimming can hide important outliers.
![“Science in England is not a profession: its cultivators are scarcely recognised even as a class. Our language itself contains no single term by which their occupation can be expressed. We borrow a foreign word [Savant] from another country whose high ambition it is to advance science, and whose…” quote by Charles Babbage](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/b12/charles-babbage-8461_accord_science-in-england-is-not-a-profession-i_256777.jpg)
