Quotes about probability

In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.

I have stressed this distinction because it is an important one. It defines the fundamental difference between probability and statistics: the former concerns predictions based on fixed probabilities the latter concerns the inference of those probabilities based on observed data.

One should not inquire too closely where ancient legends about the gods are concerned many things which reason rejects acquire some color of probability once you bring a god into the story

A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. The story should never be made up of improbable incidents there should be nothing of the sort in it.

The more energy taken, the less energy that is left for us to implement our goals and the smaller the probability of realization of our innate potential

Among all the occurrences possible in the universe the a priori probability of any particular one of them verges upon zero. Yet the universe exists; particular events must take place in it, the probability of which (before the event) was infinitesimal. At the present time we have no legitimate grounds for either asserting or denying that life got off to but a single start on earth, and that, as a consequence, before it appeared its chances of occurring were next to nil. ... Destiny is written co

Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours. . . .

If nature has taught us anything it is that the impossible is probable

Probability theory is nothing more than common sense reduced to calculation. -1819

As the sun sets, something in me rises! Do you think it could be my soul? I feel it's a big probability!

The mind is not designed to grasp the laws of probability, even though the laws rule the universe.

Between the streams of probability & possibility, lies the timeless, spaceless realm where time gets created!

Statistics, likelihoods, and probabilities mean everything to men, nothing to God.

Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that the mere fact of our existence should keep us all in a state of contented dazzlement.

You, dear reader, have now two accounts to choose between and there can be no doubt which is most probable.

The concept of randomness and coincidence will be obsolete when people can finally define a formulation of patterned interaction between all things within the universe.

All statistics have outliers.

Playing is more than the act of judging the possibility of defeat or victory, playing is the probability of hope we will have victory.

​It's Hard, Not to Fail, but, there is Always a Chance of Success. Of course, there is No Chance of Success, if You didn't Try.

I believe that we do not know anything for certain, but everything probably.

I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them.

We either base our 'confidence' on reason (evident probabilities, past experience, competence, etc) or we base our beliefs on faith, which is blind by definition. Faith is the most dishonest position it is possible to have, because it is an assertion of stoic conviction that is assumed without reason and defended against all reason. If you have to believe it on faith, you have no reason to believe it at all.

The probability of an event is the reason we have to believe that it has taken place, or that it will take place.The measure of the probability of an event is the ratio of the number of cases favourable to that event, to the total number of cases favourable or contrary, and all equally possible.

A distinguished writer [Siméon Denis Poisson] has thus stated the fundamental definitions of the science:'The probability of an event is the reason we have to believe that it has taken place, or that it will take place.''The measure of the probability of an event is the ratio of the number of cases favourable to that event, to the total number of cases favourable or contrary, and all equally possible' (equally like to happen).From these definitions it follows that the word probability, in its ma

It is highly probable that we choose our posture, not our problems.

Extremely unlikely events occur every moment and it is not a priori unthinkable that the evolution of life should be due to mere chance than that a particular order in a pack of cards should result from mechanical shuffling.

Natural selection is not only a parsimonious, plausible and elegant solution; it is the only workable alternative to chance that has ever been suggested. Intelligent design suffers from exactly the same objection as chance. It is simply not a plausible solution to the riddle of statistical improbability. And the higher the improbability, the more implausible intelligent design becomes. Seen clearly, intelligent design will turn out to be a redoubling of the problem. Once again, this is because t

Occasionally I glanced at the big blue cradle of civilization hanging in the sky, remembered for the fiftieth or sixtieth or one hundredth time that none of this had any right to be happening, and reminded myself for the fiftieth or sixtieth or one hundredth time that the only sane response was to continue carrying the tune.

Further, the same Arguments which explode the Notion of Luck, may, on the other side, be useful in some Cases to establish a due comparison between Chance and Design: We may imagine Chance and Design to be, as it were, in Competition with each other, for the production of some sorts of Events, and many calculate what Probability there is, that those Events should be rather be owing to the one than to the other.

Another mistaken notion connected with the law of large numbers is the idea that an event is more or less likely to occur because it has or has not happened recently. The idea that the odds of an event with a fixed probability increase or decrease depending on recent occurrences of the event is called the gambler's fallacy. For example, if Kerrich landed, say, 44 heads in the first 100 tosses, the coin would not develop a bias towards the tails in order to catch up! That's what is at the root of

While most of us are comfortable acknowledging that luck plays a role in what we do, we have difficulty assessing its role after the fact. Once something has occurred and we can put together a story to explain it, it starts to seem like the outcome was predestined. Statistics don't appeal to our need to understand cause and effect, which is why they are so frequently ignored or misinterpreted. Stories, on the other hand, are a rich means to communicate precisely because they emphasize cause and

So the probability I'm not there..., but you want I to be there opps so sorry I can't be but you can make a discussion with my books and if you want more just P.M. - That's how it works and It will work.

Blind nature will nearly always select the most probable, but man can let the most improbable become actual.

If the universe was scientific and just left to itself, then we’d have statistical probabilities to rely on. But once people are involved it sometimes becomes much more problematic because they’re erratic. People do crazy things that don’t make sense.

The greatest risk is not taking any.

The greatest risk is not taking one.

If skeptic can weakly force E, then he can force E.

I know that two and two make four - and should be glad to prove it too if I could - though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert 2 and 2 into five it would give me much greater pleasure.

While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice.

If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability.

Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.

Predictability is not how things will go, but how they can go.

Mathematically speaking, the probable (that in 6,000,000,000 throws with a regular six-sided die the die will come up proximately 1 ,000,000,000 times) and the improbable (that in six throws with the same die the one will come approximately up six times) are not different in kind, but only in frequency, whereby the more frequent appears a priori more probable.But the occasional occurrence of the improbable does not imply the intervention of a higher power, something in the nature of a miracle, a

The 50-50-90 rule: anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.

And some scientists and other intellectuals are convinced—too eagerly in my view—that the question of God's existence belongs in the forever inaccessible PAP category. From this, as we shall see, they often make the illogical deduction that the hypothesis of God's existence, and the hypothesis of his non-existence, have exactly equal probability of being right.

The fact that we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of something does not put existence and non-existence on an even footing.

Accidents happen. That's what everyone says. But in a quantum universe there are no such things as accidents, only possibilities and probabilities folded into existence by perception.

I may finally call attention to the probability that the association of paternal and maternal chromosomes in pairs and their subsequent separation during the reducing division as indicated above may constitute the physical basis of the Mendelian law of heredity.

There’s no such thing as probability," she says, slowly, with minimal movement of her jaw. "Things turn out the way they do.

Anything at all is possible. Some things are unlikely. Some things will never happen. But they always could, at any time.

Being nice is state of "Probability", not a state of "possibility".

What was a shadow, after all, but a shape in the moving world reduced to a projection of possibilities?