Question

What do you think Fisher meant when he said, "To consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him to conduct a post mortem examination"?

Answer 1

Just like the post mortem examination is used to examine the cause of death, the statistics are used to examine or draw inference regarding the objective of experiment or to analyse the cause of results of experiments.

But, after death the post mortem can be used to analyse only the cause and not help you in avoiding the cause of death.

A Statistician after a finished experiment can only analyse the cause of failure to reach the objectives and not change the results of experiment.