Defining acts as functions from states to consequences, reduction of many multi-stage actions to a single action follows naturally, bringing up a surprising implication for research planning though:
...the great majority of experimentalists...suppose that the function of statistics and of statisticians is to decide what conclusions to draw from data gathered in an experiment or other observational program...
...but statisticians hold it to be lacking in foresight to gather data without a view to the method of analysis to be employed...they hold that the design and analysis of an experiment should be decided upon as an articulated whole...
The author then went on to propose the main theme of the discussion as the 'Look before you leap' type, as is opposite to 'You can cross that bridge when you come to it'. I wonder whether the precautionary principle amounts to 'Look and be cautious before you leap' or 'You can cross that bridge when you come to it but be cautious'. The latter would seem more widely applied.
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