Abstract
T is often said that figures can be made to prove anything; and certain it is that a series of arithmetical operations does sometimes serve as introduction to very strange conclusions. The fault, of course, is not in the tool, but in the hand that uses it. In the larger issues of geology especially, where the gulf to be bridged between data and conclusions is so often a wide one, ingenuity of reasoning ought surely to be accompanied by a due sense of responsibility in the handling of figures. Calculation, in such applications, is by no means so simple an art as it may appear. In wrestling with problems of the kind indicated, and, I must add, in reading some very fascinating speculations by geologists of high standing, I have often wished that some obliging mathematician would put forth a small manual of applied arithmetic for the guidance of workers in the descriptive sciences. There are absolutely necessary precautions to be observed when calculation is based upon data always partial and at best roughly approximate, and these precautions are too often neglected. To be safe, we must have some conception of the probable error attaching to our observations, and we must note how the initial errors may be multiplied in the process of calculation. Especially there is the cumulation of error which must ensue when results obtained in this fashion are used as links in a chain of deduction. Here it is quite inadequate to say that the chain is no stronger than its weakest link; it is of necessity far weaker than its weakest link.
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Geology in Relation to the Exact Sciences, With an Excursus on Geological Time 1 . Nature 95, 105–109 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/095105a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/095105a0