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He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts - for support rather than for illumination.

He uses statistics like a drunk uses lamp-posts, more for support than illumination.

Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination.

I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.

Forecasting is simply not a strength of the species; we are much better with tools and narrative storytelling.

Like dreams, statistics are a form of wish fulfillment.

I'd worked at a small town newspaper, and I was thinking of all the strange stories that I had seen float through the newsroom in my time there that were dismissed as kind of amusing curiosities. Somehow from that I got to this idea of an eccentric alcoholic who built a lighthouse in the woods.

You know the way trees break through the canopy in the rainforest and they go from having this tiny column of light to having all this light - the Internet is kind of like that.

There has been this - and it's reflected in the broadcasts - this moronic use of statistics. Which has suggested to everyone who is intelligent the use of statistics is moronic.

If you have to forecast, forecast often.