#prediction

Distinguishing the signal from the noise requires both scientific knowledge and self-knowledge: the serenity to accept the things we cannot predict, the courage to predict the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. ↗

— Nate Silver

#knowledge #prediction #self-knowledge #uncertainty #wisdom

I never assume anything. I anticipate the possibilities and allow my imagination to create the future. ↗

— Lionel Suggs

#imagination #insight #prediction #imagination

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. ↗

— H.L. Mencken

#elite #elitism #elitist #meritocracy #politics

I figure lots of predictions is best. People will forget the ones I get wrong and marvel over the rest. ↗

— Alan Cox

#figure #forget #get #i #lots

The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience. ↗

— Milton Friedman

#experience #hypothesis #only #prediction #relevant

Because of recent improvements in the accuracy of theoretical predictions based on large scale ab initio quantum mechanical calculations, meaningful comparisons between theoretical and experimental findings have become possible. ↗

— Yuan T. Lee

#based #because #become #between #calculations

There's no point in making predictions. It's not worth speculating because nothing is set in stone and things change all the time in football. Today there are opportunities that no one knows if they will come round again in the future. ↗

— Cristiano Ronaldo

#because #change #come #football #future

I've actually made a prediction that within 30 years a majority of new cars made in the United States will be electric. And I don't mean hybrid, I mean fully electric. ↗

— Elon Musk

#cars #electric #fully #hybrid #i

«“Looks like your sci-fi prediction came true right away, Xavier.” “That can be gratifying,” mused the novelist. “But not all the time.”» ↗

— Bruce Sterling

#prediction #scifi #love

I remember when we found the first population of living Cerion agassizi in central Eleuthera. Our hypothesis of Cerion's general pattern required that two predictions be affirmed (or else we were in trouble): this population must disappear by hybridization with mottled shells toward bank-interior coasts and with ribby snails toward the bank-edge. We hiked west toward the bank-interior and easily found hybrids right on the verge of the airport road. We then moved east toward the bank-edge along a disused road with vegetation rising to five feet in the center between the tire paths. We should have found our hybrids but we did not. The Cerion agassizi simply stopped about two hundred yards north of our first ribby Cerion. Then we realized that a pond lay just to our east and that ribby forms, with their coastal preferences, might not favor the western side of the pond. We forded the pond and found a classic hybrid zone between Cerion agassizi and ribby Cerions. (Ribby Cerion had just managed to round the south end of the pond, but had not moved sufficiently north along the west side to establish contact with C. agassizi populations.) I wanted to shout for joy. Then I thought, "But who can I tell; who cares?" And I answered myself, "I don't have to tell anyone. We have just seen and understood something that no one has ever seen and understood before. What more does a man need? ↗

— Stephen Jay Gould

#prediction #understanding #nature