Probability Quotes - Page 11

• The risk of an investment is described by both the probability and the potential amount of loss. The risk of an investment-the probability of an adverse outcome-is partly inherent in its very nature. A dollar spent on biotechnology research is a riskier investment than a dollar used to purchase utility equipment. The former has both a greater probability of loss and a greater percentage of the investment at stake.

  Seth Klarman

  Loss, Risk, Dollars

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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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• The approach and strategies are very similar in that you gather all the information you can and then keep adding to that base of information as things develop. You do whatever the probabilities indicated based on the knowledge that you have at that time, but you are always willing to modify your behaviour or your approach as you get new information. In bridge, you behave in a way that gets the best from your partner. And in business, you behave in the way that gets the best from your managers and your employees.

  Warren Buffett

  Bridges, Behaviour, Information

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• I am now about to set seriously to work upon preparing for the press an account of my theory of Logic and Probabilities which in its present state I look upon as the most valuable if not the only valuable contribution that I have made or am likely to make to Science and the thing by which I would desire if at all to be remembered hereafter.

  George Boole

  Desire, Looks, Logic

  Letter to William Thomson, January 2, 1851.

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• Following Korzybski, I put things in probabilities, not absolutes... My only originality lies in applying this zetetic attitude outside the hardest of the hard sciences, physics, to softer sciences and then to non-sciences like politics, ideology, jury verdicts and, of course, conspiracy theory.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Attitude, Lying, Originality

  High Times Interview, 2003.

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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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• If often happens too, both in courts and in cabinets, that there are two things going on together,--a main plot and an under-plot; and he that understands only one of them will, in all probability, be the dupe of both. A mistress may rule a monarch, but some obscure favorite may rule the mistress.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Two, Mistress, Together

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.56

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• Have I ever remarked on how completely ridiculous it is to ask high school students to decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives and give them nearly no support in doing so? Support like, say, spending a day apiece watching twenty different jobs and then another week at their top three choices, with salary charts and projections and probabilities of graduating that subject given their test scores? The more so considering this is a central allocation question for the entire economy?

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Jobs, School, Giving

  "Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Memetic Hazards in Videogames - Less Wrong". lesswrong.com. September 10, 2010.

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• On the relationship side, if you teach people to respond actively and constructively when someone they care about has a victory, it increases love and friendship and decreases the probability of depression.

  Martin Seligman

  People, Victory, Love And Friendship

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• I am fully assured, that no general method for the solution of questions in the theory of probabilities can be established which does not explicitly recognize, not only the special numerical bases of the science, but also those universal laws of thought which are the basis of all reasoning, and which, whatever they may be as to their essence, are at least mathematical as to their form.

  George Boole

  Law, Essence, Special

  George Boole (1952). “Collected Logical Works”

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• Every conjecture we can form with regard to the works of God has as little probability as the conjectures of a child with regard to the works of an adult.

  Thomas Reid

  God, Children, Adults

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• Even the humblest men have a strange reason behind greed. Every man thinks money solves problems - and every man thinks not just of himself, but his next three generations - there is a probability he will live to see those generations - and he wants to care for them in times of strife.

  Siddharth Katragadda

  Men, Thinking, Greed

  "Dark Rooms: A Saga". Book by Siddharth Katragadda, 2002.

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• The historical museum has to be very conservative and careful in its choices. The modern museum, on the other hand, has to be audacious, to take chances. It has to consider the probability that it would be wrong in a good many cases and take the consequences later.

  Alfred H. Barr, Jr.

  Museums, Hands, Choices

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• The best practical advice then is: try to maximize your expected payoff, which is the sum of all payoffs multiplied by probabilities.

  Howard Raiffa

  Advice, Trying, Payoff

  Howard Raiffa (1982). “The Art and Science of Negotiation”, p.31, Harvard University Press

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• An electron is real; a probability is not.

  Hans Christian von Baeyer

  Real, Electrons

  "Information, The New Language of Science". Book by Hans Christian von Baeyer, 2003.

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• One of the most striking and fundamental things about probability theory is that it leads to an understanding of the otherwise strange fact that events which are individually capricious and unpredictable can, when treated en masse, lead to very stable average performances.

  Warren Weaver

  Average, Probability Theory, Understanding

  Warren Weaver (2012). “Lady Luck: The Theory of Probability”, p.361, Courier Corporation

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• The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default.

  Alan Greenspan

  Zero, United States, Debt

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• On their way toward modern science human beings have discarded meaning. The concept is replaced by the formula, the cause by rules and probability.

  Theodor Adorno

  Way, Causes, Modern

  Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno (2002). “Dialectic of Enlightenment”, p.3, Stanford University Press

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• There is nothing in the nature of a miracle that should render it incredible:;: its credibility depends upon the nature of the evidence by which it is supported. An event of extreme probability will not necessarily command our belief unless upon a sufficiency of proof; and so an event which we may regard as highly improbable may command our belief if it is sustained by sufficient evidence. So that the credibility or incredibility of an event does not rest upon the nature of the event itself, but depends upon the nature and sufficiency of the proof which sustains it.

  Charles Babbage

  Miracle, Events, Doe

  Charles Babbage (1864). “Passages from the Life of a Philosopher”, p.476, London : Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green

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• An aphorism is an extreme synthesis of thesis and antithesis, theory and practice, it's a mixture of intuition and observation, hypothesis and illusions of certainty and probability, history and stupidity.

  William C. Brown

  Practice, Stupidity, Intuition

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• Money isn't always the best motivator. If you leave a $50 check after dinner with friends, you don't increase the probability of being invited back.

  Yochai Benkler

  Dinner With Friends, Increase, Checks

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• The truth is, the greatest tool to lift children and families from poverty is one that decreases the probability of child poverty by 82%. But it isn't a government spending program. It's called marriage.

  Marco Rubio

  Children, Government, Poverty

  Marco Rubio’s speech on poverty, hotair.com. January 8, 2014.

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• While feeling far less injured by toil than my friends took for granted I must be, I yet was always aware of the strong probability that my life would end as the lives of hard literary workers usually end, - in paralysis, with months or years of imbecility.

  Harriet Martineau

  Strong, Years, Feelings

  Harriet Martineau (2015). “Harriet Martineau's Autobiography (Vol. I: Abridged, Annotated)”, p.118, BIG BYTE BOOKS

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• A good test case is a test case that has a high probability of detecting an undiscovered error, not a test case that show that the program works correctly.

  Glenford Myers

  Errors, Tests, Program

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• The probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the job of whipping-master in a slave plantation.

  Frank Knight

  Jobs, Exercise, People

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