Quotes About Likelihood

T]he probabilistic nature of the Schrödinger equation, which predicts only the likelihood of different experimental outcomes, leaves it offering no reason why one specific outcome is observed instead of another. In effect, it says that quantum events (the radioactive decay of an atom, say) happen for no reason.

I was voted least likely to manage a business when I was at Dickinson College.

Knowing that we can control our own behaviour makes it more likely that we will.

We are all vulnerable to the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of vivid, cognitively available risks rather than statistically likelier, but less salient, risks.

Studies have shown that children are less likely to wake up to a horn than the sound of a mother's voice.

People who express suicidal feelings are least likely to act on them.

Life is a school of probability. In the writings of every man of patient practicality, in the midst of whatever other defects, you will find a careful appreciation of the degrees of likelihood; a steady balancing of them one against another; a disinclination to make things too clear, to overlook the debit side of the account in mere contemplation of the enormousness of the credit.

Contrary to the rules of philosophers of science, who advise testing hypotheses by trying to refute them, people (and scientists, quite often) seek data that are likely to be compatible with the beliefs they currently hold. The confirmatory bias of System 1 favors uncritical acceptance of suggestions and exaggeration of the likelihood of extreme and improbable events. If

Many decisions are based on beliefs concerning the likelihood of uncertain events such as the outcome of an election, the guilt of a defendant, or the future value of the dollar.

the likelihood that something will go wrong in a big project is high.

The general tendency to overestimate the probability of conjunctive events leads to unwarranted optimism in the evaluation of the likelihood that a plan will succeed or that a project will be completed on time.

occupations by probability and by similarity in exactly the same way.

Worry predictions aren't based on what's likely to happen. They're based on what would be terrible if it did happen. They're not based on probability—they're based on fear.

anything that was Infinitely Improbable was actually very likely to happen almost immediately.

Because, my friend, the more prosaic explanation is nearly always more probable.

Imagination is a good servant and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.

Each time you indulge in the emotion of anger or the behavior of yelling at a loved one, you reinforce the neural connection and increase the likelihood that you'll do it again.

If we were to judge nature by common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed.

Probabilities are relative to background information.

It turns out that you only need 23 people for it to be more likely to find a shared birthday than not.

With 80 people, the size of this classroom, the probability that there will be no shared birthdays is so tiny as to be virtually impossible.

However, since we have never observed the construction of a world or observed the world constructors, we have no way of knowing what causal relations might be involved in such a project; all we can do is construct hypotheses, without any way of judging which of these are more or less likely.

Unfortunately, we generally find it difficult to assess very small probabilities. We typically overestimate them (thinking the events more likely than they are) and underestimate very high probabilities.

It makes sense to predict likely future performance from past performance. Indeed, we often don't have much else to go on. Unfortunately, however, the past can be an uncertain guide to the future.