Probability Quotes - Page 14

• People in suburbia see trees differently than foresters do. They cherish every one. It is useless to speak of the probability that a certain tree will die when the tree is in someone's backyard . . . . You are talking about a personal asset, a friend, a monument, not about board feet of lumber.

  Roger Swain

  Talking, Feet, People

  Roger B. Swain (1983). “Field days: journal of an itinerant biologist”, Macmillan Reference USA

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• The statistical probability that organic structures and the most precisely harmonized reactions that typify living organisms would be generated by accident, is zero.

  Ilya Prigogine

  Zero, Knowledge, Would Be

  "100,000 Galaxies: What quest for alien 'supercivilizations' really tells us" by Michael Guillen, www.foxnews.com. April 25, 2015.

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• When you turn from one room to the next, when your animal senses no longer perceive the sounds of the dishwasher, the ticking clock, the smell of a chicken roasting - the kitchen and all its seemingly discrete bits dissolve into nothingness - or into waves of probability.

  Robert Lanza

  Animal, Smell, Kitchen

  "Robert Lanza doesn't seem to be kidding" by Adam Rogers, www.wired.com. March 8, 2007.

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• However, the small probability of a similar encounter [of the earth with a comet], can become very great in adding up over a huge sequence of centuries. It is easy to picture to oneself the effects of this impact upon the Earth. The axis and the motion of rotation changed; the seas abandoning their old position to throw themselves toward the new equator; a large part of men and animals drowned in this universal deluge, or destroyed by the violent tremor imparted to the terrestrial globe.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Science, Animal, Men

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• The earth in its rapid motion round the sun possesses a degree of living force so vast that, if turned into the equivalent of heat, its temperature would be rendered at least one thousand times greater than that of red-hot iron, and the globe on which we tread would in all probability be rendered equal in brightness to the sun itself.

  James Prescott Joule

  Science, Iron, Would Be

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• It would be so weird if we knew just as much as we needed to know to answer all the questions of the universe. Wouldn't that be freaky? Whereas the probability is high that there is a vast reality that we have no way to perceive, that's actually bearing down on us now and influencing everything.

  George Saunders

  Reality, Would Be, Answers

  George Saunders (2013). “Tenth of December”, p.20, A&C Black

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• Some people are under the impression that all that is required to make a good fisherman is the ability to tell lies easily and without blushing; but this is a mistake. Mere bald fabrication is useless; the veriest tyro can manage that. It is in the circumstantial detail, the embellishing touches of probability, the general air of scrupulous - almost of pedantic - veracity, that the experienced angler is seen.

  Jerome K. Jerome

  Mistake, Lying, Air

  Jerome K. Jerome (2006). “Jerome K. Jerome: 14 Books in 1”, p.55, Shoes & Ships & Sealing Wax

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• There is certainly the intention of efforts like the Common Core to raise education standards and make sure that every student masters advanced math concepts - algebra, geometry, statistics and probability.

  Anya Kamenetz

  Math, Effort, Statistics

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• I cannot assume you will understand me. It is just as likely that as I invent what I want to say, you will invent what you want to hear. Some story we must have. Stray words on crumpled paper. A weak signal into the outer space of each other. The probability of seperate worlds meeting is very small. The lure is immense. We send starships. We fall in love

  Jeanette Winterson

  Falling In Love, Space, Stories

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• Manners,[...] are severly underappreciated in my opinion". "Oh?" Where practiced well, they remove the probability that someone in my position will be forced to go through the effort of killing someone in yours. Belive that on occasion that much death can become tedious.

  Michelle Sagara

  Killing Someone, Effort, Opinion

  Michelle Sagara (2016). “Michelle Sagara Chronicles of Elantra Vol 2: Cast in Secret\Cast in Fury\Cast in Silence”, p.955, MIRA

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• In all probability, mental states are processes and activities of the brain. Exactly what activities, and exactly at what level of description, remains to be seen.

  Patricia Churchland

  Brain, Levels, States

  "Causal machines". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. April 10, 2012.

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• If we only identify with the mortal world, then we identify with a level of scarcity and lack and brokenness, and that will be our experience. But if we shift our experience of self-identification - and this is what enlightenment is - from the body-self to the spiritual-self, then we place ourselves under an entirely different set of possibilities and probabilities.

  Marianne Williamson

  Spiritual, Self, Enlightenment

  "A Conversation with Marianne Williamson: Powerful pioneer in new thought and spirituality". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• Statement: A girl and a boy jump into a river. The boy swims over to the girl and says, "God, it's cold." Question: What's the probability they will kiss?

  Jenny Downham

  Girl, Math, Kissing

  Jenny Downham (2010). “You Against Me”, p.327, Random House

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• It was wonderful love that Christ should rather die for us than for the angels that fell. They were creatures of a more noble extract, and in all probability might have brought greater revenues of glory to God; yet that Christ should pass by those golden vessels, and make us clods of earth into stars of glory -- Oh, the hyperbole of Christ's love!

  Thomas Watson

  Stars, Angel, Noble

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• Why couldn't she have this, just enjoy this, without creating obstacles, digging up problems, worrying about mistakes, about tomorrow's? Why let the maybe's, the what if's, the probabilities spoil something so lovely?

  Nora Roberts

  Mistake, Creating, Worry

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• Regarding the air raid over Los Angeles it was learned by Army G2 that Rear Admiral Anderson...recovered an unidentified airplane off the coast of California...with no bearing on conventional explanation. This Headquarters has come to the determination that the mystery airplanes are in fact not earthly and, according to secret intelligence sources, they are in all probability of interplanetary origin.

  George C. Marshall

  Determination, Airplane, Army

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• I think the probability of a supernatural creator existing is very very low.

  Richard Dawkins

  Thinking, Lows, Creator

  "'Outspoken atheist' Dawkins admits he is agnostic" by Tim Edwards, www.theweek.co.uk. February 24, 2012.

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• In a business setting, one's intelligence is crucial. Many problems faced by today's executives are unique and ill-defined. So, one's ability to analyze information and render a decision based upon the probability of success is imperative. What it comes down to is that all the knowledge in the world is useless if one has no means of processing and applying it. Organizations run on the brainpower of their people.

  Justin Menkes

  Running, Mean, Unique

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• There is a radical and unprecedented shift [in war] that is part of the general transformation of civilization. First, understand that the past 150 years of warfare are totally unprecedented in that we introduced a breathtakingly inefficient technology: guns. In the First World War, and this is not an exaggeration, it took 10,000 rounds of ammunition to kill one person. Any given shot had a one in 10,000 probability of ending someone's life.

  George Friedman

  War, Technology, Gun

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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• If you are a carrier of a particular set of genes, your probability of committing a violent crime goes up by eight hundred and eighty-two percent.

  David Eagleman

  Two, Eight, Crime

  David Eagleman (2011). “Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain”, p.167, Vintage

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• If you leave school at 16 then, in all probability, there is a machine that can do what you can do better and cheaper. And Trump can't do anything to change that.

  Nicholas Bloom

  School, Machines, Trump

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• As I have heard, since my arrival at this place, a circumstantial account of my death and dying speech, I take this early opportunity of contradicting the first, and of assuring you, that I have not as yet composed the latter. But by the All-Powerful Dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, although death was leveling my companions on every side of me!

  George Washington

  Horse, Powerful, Opportunity

  Washington Irving, George Washington (1904). “Life of George Washington”

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• I do object to the assumption that anything that might be outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation. That's an impoverished view of the kinds of questions we humans can ask, such as "Why am I here?", "What happens after we die?", "Is there a God?" If you refuse to acknowledge their appropriateness, you end up with a zero probability of God after examining the natural world because it doesn't convince you on a proof basis.

  Richard Dawkins

  Zero, Views, World

  Source: inters.org

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• I think that the existence of Beethoven is remarkable, but I do not bristle at the suggestion that this event had a low probability given the initial state of the universe.

  Elliott Sober

  Thinking, Suggestions, Events

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• Earlier attempts to show that simpler theories always have higher prior probabilities have failed, but there is a restricted circumstance in which the claim is right.

  Elliott Sober

  Claims, Theory, Circumstances

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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