#probability

The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes amounts to certainty; the new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle. ↗

— Hannah Arendt

#always #appears #certainty #everyday #guise

The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale. ↗

— Richard Dawkins

#essence #improbability #life #scale #statistical

A property in the 100-year floodplain has a 96 percent chance of being flooded in the next hundred years without global warming. The fact that several years go by without a flood does not change that probability. ↗

— Earl Blumenauer

#chance #change #does #fact #flood

They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors! ↗

— Nellie Bly

#comparison #driven #easier #fault #gallows

Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty, and leave nether room nor demand for a theory of probabilities. ↗

— George Boole

#affecting #certainty #change #circumstances #demand

If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability. ↗

— Vannevar Bush

#attempt #entirely #far #game #get

Natural selection is a mechanism for generating an exceedingly high degree of improbability. ↗

— Ronald Fisher

#exceedingly #generating #high #high degree #improbability

In the financial system we have today, with less risk concentrated in banks, the probability of systemic financial crises may be lower than in traditional bank-centered financial systems. ↗

— Timothy Geithner

#concentrated #crises #financial #financial crises #financial system

I am in suspense as to the probable or improbability of being called into the Army, a station I would prefer to any other that of being in arms to defend an injured and grossly insulted country. ↗

— John Sevier

#any #arms #army #being #called

Information: the negative reciprocal value of probability. ↗

— Claude Shannon

#negative #probability #reciprocal #value