From R. A. Fisher, 1938:
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.
Statistical autopsy
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jeromy Anglim. Jeromy Anglim said: @johndcook quoting Fisher: Doing a statistical autopsy http://bit.ly/cVVF8A [...]
An excellent observation. I’ve had too many people ask me for statistics help after the fact, and I’m not even an expert.
This is so true. The worst is when a grad student comes to you and you realize that some experiments they designed for their thesis research were massively underpowered and/or poorly designed. It’s just so disheartening.