Quotes About Likelihood

There is almost always a long tail of possibility, however thin. What's wrong with looking for it? Nothing, it seems to me, unless it means we have failed to prepare for the outcome that's vastly more probable.

I didn't see much likelihood that an error would be found. Today

In general, quantum mechanics does not predict a single definite result for an observation. Instead, it predicts a number of different possible outcomes and tells us how likely each of these is.

We have observed two common yet flawed views that unfortunately impact a church's likelihood to make disciples that are transformed: equating information with discipleship and viewing discipleship merely as behavioral modification. Discipleship is much more than information and much deeper than behavioral modification.

Research provides a firm grounding for these empirical findings. The two defining characteristics of lead users and the likelihood that they will develop new or modified products have been found to be highly correlated (Morrison et al.

But that outcome looked more and more unlikely.

It is the job of the historian to say what is likely, and of faith to say what is possible.

Bam Bam Bigelow truly deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, and if that call would come, I'd be honored to do it, but I don't think it is going to come. I think there is a much greater likelihood that Vince would look elsewhere, but I am honored that the fans would want to consider that I should be the one to induct him.

It is scientific only to say what is more likely and what less likely, and not to be proving all the time the possible and impossible.

Abductive reasoning is neither deductive nor inductive. Abductive reasoning, even when done properly, doesn't lead to a certain conclusion, as deductive reasoning does; nor even necessarily to a probable conclusion, as inductive reasoning does; but rather to the most plausible conclusion, meaning the likeliest explanation for the observations.

There's a good usability principle right there: If something requires a large investment of time—or looks like it will—it's less likely to be used.

Most people are terrible at risk assessment. They tend to overstate the risk of dramatic and unlikely events at the expense of more common and boring (if equally devastating) events.

Intuitive probability is driven by imaginability: the easier something is to visualize, the likelier it seems. This entraps us into what Tversky and Kahneman call the conjunction fallacy, in which a conjunction is more intuitively probable than either of its elements.

With a constant probability of ending every year, a war is most likely to end after its first year, slightly less likely to end within two years, a bit less likely to stretch on to three, and so on.

Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others.

it is probable that improbable things will happen. Granted this, one might argue that what is improbable is probable.

Improbability, as described here, is a relative notion, not an absolute one; when we say an outcome is improbable, we are always saying, explicitly or not, that it is improbable under some set of hypotheses we've made about the underlying mechanisms of the world.

Reality is not always probable, or likely.

We cannot control atomic energy to an extent which would be of any value commercially, and I believe we are not likely ever to be able to do so.

Every day it seems more likely that we are destined - or should one say doomed? - to replay the disastrous economic history of the 1930s.

People's genes can say a great deal about their health. There are genes that reveal an increased likelihood of getting cancer, heart disease or Alzheimer's.

We felt it was very likely the fee would be a deterrent for people, and that 'WoW' would not sell as quickly as some of our previous games.

But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us.

Ah, said the magus, understanding at once. I see that he means to be prepared if he meets him again. Surely that's unlikely, said Sounis. I don't think unlikely means to him what it does to the rest of us, said the magus.