Predictions Quotes - Page 18

• The prediction of nuclear winter is drawn not, of course, from any direct experience with the consequences of global nuclear war, but rather from an investigation of the governing physics.

  Carl Sagan

  War, Winter, Science

  "A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race". Book by Carl Sagan, p. 26, 1990.

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• Making predictions is tough. Especially for the future.

  Yogi Berra

  Tough

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• A scientist naturally and inevitably ... mulls over the data and guesses at a solution. He proceeds to testing of the guess by new data-predicting the consequences of the guess and then dispassionately inquiring whether or not the predictions are verified.

  Edwin Powell Hubble

  Science, Data, Inquiring

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• It is ... a sign of the times-though our brothers of physics and chemistry may smile to hear me say so-that biology is now a science in which theories can be devised: theories which lead to predictions and predictions which sometimes turn out to be correct. These facts confirm me in a belief I hold most passionately-that biology is the heir of all the sciences.

  Peter Medawar

  Brother, Time, Science

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• The only thing that we know about financial predictions of start-ups is that 100 percent of them are wrong

  Brad Feld

  Fundraising, Financial, Percent

  Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson (2016). “Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist”, p.26, John Wiley & Sons

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• Agency by agency, we frequently have lost a bit of ground, at least to inflation-but had it not been for the efforts we've made to educate people about the importance of science, technology and advanced education, those predictions very well might have come true.

  Charles M. Vest

  Education, Technology, Agency

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• Mobile use is growing faster than all of Google's internal predictions.

  Eric Schmidt

  Phones, Google, Use

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• Let me state what the official IPCC prediction is: Sea levels could go up as much as three-quarters of a meter in this century, but there is a reasonable probability it could be much higher than that.

  Steven Chu

  Sea, Three, Levels

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• We need to get environmentalism out of the sphere of religion. We need to stop the mythic fantasies, and we need to stop the doomsday predictions. We need to start doing hard science instead.

  Michael Crichton

  Needs, Spheres, Fantasy

  Michael Crichton's Remarks to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, www.cs.cmu.edu. September 15, 2003.

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• The contradictory remarks of politicians are forgotten; the more asinine predictions of pundits are buried with mercy.

  Norman Mailer

  Wisdom, Forgotten, Politician

  Norman Mailer (1970). “Cannibals and Christians”

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• Legends of prediction are common throughout the whole Household of Man. Gods speak, spirits speak, computers speak. Oracular ambiguity or statistical probability provides loopholes, and discrepancies are expunged by Faith.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Faith, Men, Legends

  Ursula K. Le Guin (2000). “The Left Hand of Darkness”, p.46, Penguin

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• Predictions of the future are never anything but projections of present automatic processes and procedures, that is, of occurrences that are likely to come to pass if men do not act and if nothing unexpected happens; every action, for better or worse, and every accident necessarily destroys the whole pattern in whose frame the prediction moves and where it finds its evidence.

  Hannah Arendt

  Moving, Men, Patterns

  Hannah Arendt (1970). “On Violence”, p.13, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In this acausal world, scientists are helpless. Their predictions become postdictions- Their equations become justifications, their logic, illogic. Scientists turn reckless and mutter like gamblers who cannot stop betting. Scientists are buffoons, not because they are rational but because the cosmos is irrational. Or perhaps it is not because the cosmos is irrational but because they are rational. Who can say which, in an acausal world?

  Alan Lightman

  Science, Cosmos, World

  Alan Lightman (2011). “Einstein's Dreams”, p.29, Vintage

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• A hundred years ago, Auguste Compte, ... a great philosopher, said that humans will never be able to visit the stars, that we will never know what stars are made out of, that that's the one thing that science will never ever understand, because they're so far away. And then, just a few years later, scientists took starlight, ran it through a prism, looked at the rainbow coming from the starlight, and said: "Hydrogen!" Just a few years after this very rational, very reasonable, very scientific prediction was made, that we'll never know what stars are made of.

  Michio Kaku

  Stars, Science, Years

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• Left Behind takes what to some people may be unbelievable predictions from the Bible and shows how they might play out. It makes the events of biblical prophecy understandable and thus believable.

  Jerry B. Jenkins

  Biblical, Play, People

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• Although I'm not prepared to move up my prediction of a computer passing the Turing test by 2029, the progress that has been achieved in systems like Watson should give anyone substantial confidence that the advent of Turing-level AI is close at hand. If one were to create a version of Watson that was optimized for the Turing test, it would probably come pretty close.

  Ray Kurzweil

  Moving, Hands, Giving

  Ray Kurzweil (2012). “How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed”, p.180, Penguin

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• Letters to the editors of English and American newspapers often contain expressions of horror about the new terms that creep into the language, and these expressions are usually accompanied by dire predictions about ruination of the mother tongue.

  Peter Farb

  Mother, Editors, Expression

  Peter Farb (2015). “Word Play: What Happens When People Talk”, p.331, Vintage

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• If my fans think I can do everything I say I can do, then they're crazier than I am. After one of his fight predictions turned out to be wrong.

  Muhammad Ali

  Fighting, Thinking, Boxing

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• We made it. Despite the fear and predictions of doom. We made it. Even though there were days when we were tired and there were days when we forgot who we were. We made it. And we must thank the stars for this. And the birds for their beautiful songs. And the strangers who were careful to smile. We made it.

  Ron Atchison

  Inspirational, Beautiful, Song

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• [I predict] the electricity generated by water power is the only thing that is going to keep future generations from freezing. Now we use coal whenever we produce electric power by steam engine, but there will be a time when there'll be no more coal to use. That time is not in the very distant future. ... Oil is too insignificant in its available supply to come into much consideration.

  Charles Proteus Steinmetz

  Science, Electric Power, Oil

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• One of the things that I think we have learned is that we should all be very careful about making predictions about the future.

  William J. Clinton

  Caring, Thinking, Should

  Clinton, William J. (2000). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 2000-2001”, p.2532, Best Books on

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• Each artist comes to the painting or sculpture because there he can be told that he, the individual, transcends all classes and flouts all predictions. In the work of art, he finds his uniqueness confirmed.

  Ben Shahn

  Art, Class, Sculpture

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• Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd steam! afar
  Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
  Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
  The flying chariot through the field of air.

  Erasmus Darwin

  Air, Wings, Car

  Erasmus Darwin (1807). “The Botanic Garden: A Poem, in Two Parts: Part I. Containing The Economy of Vegetation. Part II. The Loves of the Plants”, p.22

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• The Roman Empire controlled the world because it could build roads . . . the British Empire was dominant because it had ships. In the air age we were powerful because we had airplaines. Now the Communists have established a foothold in outer space.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Powerful, Future, Space

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• Men who have worked together to reach the stars are not likely to descend together into the depths of war and desolation.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Stars, War, Future

  Johnson, Lyndon B. (1967). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966”, p.668, Best Books on

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