Quotes About Inference

What these cases of success in the hard sciences have in common is that they really do lend themselves to a straightforward logical analysis: there is a limited number of options, and they are mutually exclusive. Just like logical trees work very well in classic Aristotelian logic (where the only values that can be attached to a proposition are true or false), so strong inference works well with a certain type of scientific question.

We are not inferring design to account for a black box, but to account for an open box.

All mathematical proofs must be deductive. Each proof is a chain of deductive arguments, each of which has its premises and conclusion.

same phenomenon and concludes that the phenomenon will always occur. Conclusions obtained by induction seem well warranted

The epitaph of inference is like a tattoo on your eternity, which will prove to you that everything is meaningless.

As a realist, I can argue that there is no fire without smoke and not the other way around.

In the quiet spaces opened up by the prolonged, undistracted reading of a book, people made their own associations, drew their own inferences and analogies, fostered their own ideas. They thought deeply as they read deeply.

that correlation does not show causation.

But the most important thing to remember is that correlation does not show causation.

Since so many research conclusions depend on essentially mathematical ideas-the principles of statistical and probabilistic inference-and since even the best-trained physicians tend to have only a modest mathematical education, physicians end up taking many of these conclusions on faith.

hear the language, this English, double-jointed as Bedivere's limbs. It only sounds awkward. In its ability to join one concept to another as with pegs, its dependent clauses, figures of speech and cadenced alliteration, a man can say one thing five ways and yet imply a sixth; can change meaning with an inflection, a pause or a deliberate misuse of a word, can mock, scorn and flay an opponent without uttering one overt insult.

The majority of important things cannot be said outright, they cannot be made explicit. They can only be implied.

The conclusion is that the original assumption of ordering leads us into contradiction, and so that assumption must be false.

Show me your friends and I will tell you your future

Presumably, those overhearing half a conversation were strongly compelled to try to infer the missing half in a way that made for a complete narrative. As the authors point out, the study may help explain why we find one-sided cell phone conversations in public spaces so intrusive, but it also reveals the ineluctable way we are drawn to imbue the events around us with rational explanations.