Probability Quotes - Page 10

• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• motivation is highest when the probability of success is 50 percent: We don't get involved if the task is too easy or too hard.

  Judith M Bardwick

  Motivation, Tasks, Easy

  Judith M. Bardwick (1995). “Danger in the Comfort Zone: From Boardroom to Mailroom--how to Break the Entitlement Habit That's Killing American Business”, p.63, AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn

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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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• 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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• We can never achieve absolute truth but we can live hopefully by a system of calculated probabilities.

  Agnes Meyer Driscoll

  Achieve, Absolute Truth, Hopefully

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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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• 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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• 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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• Unlike cheap stocks, inexpensive asset classes have a lower chance of big drawdowns (broad asset classes don't go to zero) and a higher probability of average or better returns.

  Barry Ritholtz

  Zero, Average, Class

  Source: www.bloomberg.com

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• I'm a pessimist about probabilities, I'm an optimist about possibilities.

  Lewis Mumford

  Optimism, Possibility, Pessimist

  "Lewis Mumford Remembers". The New York Times, July 6, 1977.

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• He who sees different ways to the same end, will, unless he watches carefully over his own conduct, lay out too much of his attention upon the comparison of probabilities and the adjustment of expedients, and pause in the choice of his road, till some accident intercepts his journey.

  Samuel Johnson

  Journey, Choices, Too Much

  Samuel Johnson (1793). “The Rambler”, p.304

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• I described to my patent lawyer our new algorithm-that I was hoping to patent- about detecting clustering, that involved three probabilities α , β, γ that add-up to 1, and mentioned that it is like "a three-sided coin". A few days later he came up with a patent application for a "three-sided-coin".

  Jennifer Tour Chayes

  Science, Patents, Add

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• The source of Pyrrhonism comes from failing to distinguish between a demonstration, a proof and a probability. A demonstration supposes that the contradictory idea is impossible; a proof of fact is where all the reasons lead to belief, without there being any pretext for doubt; a probability is where the reasons for belief are stronger than those for doubting.

  Andrew Michael Ramsay

  Ideas, Doubt, Stronger

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• Mental Management is the process of maximising the probability of having a consistent mental performance, under pressure, on demand

  Lanny Bassham

  Demand, Pressure, Management

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• There is no error which hath not some appearance of probability resembling truth, which, when men who study to be singular find out, straining reason, they then publish to the world matter of contention and jangling.

  Walter Raleigh

  Men, Errors, Matter

  Sir Walter Raleigh (1829). “The history of the world”, p.112

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• I have been too long acquainted with human nature to have great regard for human testimony; and a very great degree of probability, supported by various concurrent circumstances, conspiring in one point, will have much greater weight with me, than human testimony upon oath, or even upon honour; both of which I have frequently seen considerably warped by private views.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Truth, Views, Long

  Lord Chesterfield (1998). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.319, Oxford Paperbacks

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• If you go back and look at the history of Supreme Court fights from the very beginning there is a corresponding interest, and and the intent of the interest of the Senate with, as it relates to the probability that the next appointee would alter the balance in the court.

  Joe Biden

  Fighting, Balance, Next

  Interview with Rachel Maddow, www.msnbc.com. February 18, 2016.

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• In autism there is just genes in part more or less of a probability that you will have the disorder, and that is where interactions with the environment are key.

  Gerald Fischbach

  Keys, Autism, Environment

  "Big Think Panel Discussion on Autism". Interview with Susan Wilczynski, bigthink.com.

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