Probability Quotes - Page 9

• A person who is psychic is following a line of probability to see a probable future; but it can change. Another causal fact will interfere and that future won't happen.

  Frederick Lenz

  Psychics, Lines, Facts

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• Many modern philosophers claim that probability is relation between an hypothesis and the evidence for it.

  Ian Hacking

  Philosopher, Modern, Claims

  Ian Hacking (2006). “The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas about Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference”, p.58, Cambridge University Press

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• Customers are wrestling with mission-critical decisions, evaluating solutions that all sound the same, and struggling to achieve the value they expect, when experience has shown them that far too many solutions come packaged with a high degree of risk and a low probability of success.

  Jeff Thull

  Struggle, Wrestling, Critical Decisions

  Jeff Thull (2010). “Mastering the Complex Sale: How to Compete and Win When the Stakes are High!”, John Wiley and Sons

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• Nature prefers the more probable states to the less probable because in nature processes take place in the direction of greater probability. Heat goes from a body at higher temperature to a body at lower temperature because the state of equal temperature distribution is more probable than a state of unequal temperature distribution.

  Max Planck

  Nature, Science, Body

  Max Planck (1915). “Eight Lectures on Theoretical Physics Delivered at Columbia University in 1909”, p.74, Library of Alexandria

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• Probability fractions arise from our knowledge and from our ignorance.

  Ian Hacking

  Ignorance, Arise, Fractions

  Ian Hacking (2006). “The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas about Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference”, p.132, Cambridge University Press

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• You know that, according to quantum theory, if two particles collide with enough energy you can, in principle, with an infinitesimal probability, produce two grand pianos.

  Isidor Isaac Rabi

  Two, Piano, Energy

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• If zero percent of the elites support something, very low chance it's going to pass, if 100% support something, very high chance it's going to pass. Same thing for organized interest groups. But for the average voter, it's a flat line. Which says it doesn't matter whether zero percent of the public believes something or 100% of the average voters believe something - it doesn't affect the probability that that thing will be enacted.

  Lawrence Lessig

  Zero, Believe, Average

  "'Your Representative Doesn't Give a Shit About You': Larry Lessig's Plan to Fix Democracy". Interview with Hamilton Nolan, gawker.com. October 13, 2015.

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• Obviously, things can get derailed, particularly if, which looks more and more likely, you get a blow-up between Israel and Iran. I think that's a very real probability now. But barring some real blow-up, the U.S. economy will grow, after a slow first quarter, about 3, 3.5 percent this year, far better than it was in 2011.

  Steve Forbes

  Real, Thinking, Blow

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• Probability is a kind of penance, which God made, suitable, I presume to that state of mediocrity and probationership he has been pleased to place us in here; wherein, to check our over-confidence and presumption, we might, by every day's experience, be made sensible of our short-sightedness, and liableness to error.

  John Locke

  Kindness, Errors, Mediocrity

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• You want something, you dwell upon it consciously for a while, you consciously imagine it coming to the forefront of probabilities, closer to your actuality. Then you drop it like a pebble into Framework 2, forget about it as much as possible for a fortnight, and do this in a certain rhythm.

  Seth

  Want Something, Pebbles, Forget

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• Do not personally give any more conscious consideration, either of you, to events that you do not want to happen. Any such concentration, to whatever degree, ties you in with those probabilities, so concentrate upon what you want, and as far as public events are concerned, take it for granted that sometimes even men are wiser than they know.

  Seth

  Men, Ties, Giving

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• If you look like your passport photo, in all probability you need the journey.

  Earl Wilson

  Travel, Journey, Needs

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• At 55 I said the probability is I won't have another relationship. I just didn't want to start another family. Between my own bizarre criteria and taste and the fact that I'm not available for many things I thought it was unlikely. Once you know the science about it, I don't think anybody should consider being committed to a real eternal relationship until you're through something called the infatuation circle.

  Jack Nicholson

  Real, Thinking, Circles

  Source: the-talks.com

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• The difficulty in judging what type of behavior works well arises not only because a given course of action does not always produce the outcomes. Similar outcomes can occur for reasons other than the person's actions, which further complicates inferential judgment. Effects that arise independently of one's actions distort the influence of similar effects produced by the actions, but only on some occasions. Given a strong cognitive set to perceive regularities, even chance joint occurrences of events can be easily misjudged as genuine relationships of low contingent probability

  Albert Bandura

  Strong, Judging, Outcomes

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• It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the probability of a failure with loss of vehicle and of human life. The estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000. The higher figures come from the working engineers, and the very low figures from management.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Loss, Differences, Safety

  Richard P. Feynman (2011). “"What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character”, p.238, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Most people think the Iraq war has increased the probability of an attack. However, it's difficult to put this aspect into financial terms.

  Joseph Stiglitz

  War, Thinking, Iraq

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• On moral grounds, I think that if you believe a certain outcome is a very possible outcome, you have an obligation to tell people that. With global warming, the probability of a bad outcome if we stay on our current emission trends is incredibly high. If you know a bad outcome is likely to happen, what right do you have not to communicate that? You go into a doctor's office, what are they going to do - not tell you the diagnosis?

  Joseph J. Romm

  Believe, Thinking, Doctors

  "Joe Romm on why climate change is a winning political strategy". Interview with Chris Mooney, www.theguardian.com. October 10, 2012.

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• Digital television is no longer a probability, it is a certainty.

  Tessa Jowell

  Television, Digital, Certainty

  "BBC footing digital bill for poor". Speech at the Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention, www.imdb.com. September 15, 2005.

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• Our beliefs are not just estimates of probabilities. They are also the instruments that guide our actions.

  John Ortberg

  Our Actions, Belief, Guides

  John Ortberg (2010). “Know Doubt: The Importance of Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith (Large Print 16pt)”, p.21, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• ... there is wisdom in madness and strong probability of truth in all accusations, for people are complete, and everyone is capable of everything.

  Joseph Heller

  Strong, People, Madness

  Joseph Heller (1997). “God Knows”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

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• The certainty that life cannot be long, and the probability that it will be much shorter than nature allows, ought to awaken every man to the active prosecution of whatever he is desirous to perform.

  Samuel L. Jackson

  Men, Long, Certainty

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• Man's destiny was no longer determined from 'above' by a super-human wisdom and will, but from 'below' by the sub-human agencies of glands, genes, atoms, or waves of probability. ...they could determine his fate, but could provide him with no moral guidance, no values and meaning. A puppet of the Gods is a tragic figure, a puppet suspended on his chromosomes is merely grotesque.

  Arthur Koestler

  Fate, Destiny, Men

  "The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe". Book by Arthur Koestler, 1959.

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• When you know absolutely nothing about the topic, make your forecast by asking a carefully selected probability sample of 300 others who don't know the answer either.

  Edgar Fiedler

  Asking, Answers, Topics

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• Science fiction - and the correct shortcut is 'sf' - uses actual scientific facts or theories for the source ideas or framework of the story. It has some scientific content, however speculative. If it breaks a law of physics, it knows it's doing so and follows up the consequences. If it invents a society of aliens, it does so with some respect for and knowledge of the social sciences and what you might call social probabilities. And some of it is literarily self-aware enough to treat its metaphors as metaphors.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Self, Law, Ideas

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• One of the most basic and pervasive social processes is the sorting and labeling of things, activities, and people... Sorting and labeling processes involve a trade-off of costs and benefits. In general, the more finely the sorting is done, the greater the benefits - and the costs... Sorting and labeling, whether of people or of things, is a sorting and labeling of probabilities rather than of certainties.

  Thomas Sowell

  People, Cost, Done

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