John Allen Paulos Quotes (48 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

John Allen Paulos

John Allen Paulos: 48 quotes 2 likes

Famous John Allen Paulos Quotes

“There is no such thing as free lunch, and even if there were, there’d be no guarantee against indigestion.”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 5, “Statistics, Trade-Offs, and Society” (p. 147)

“Disproving a claim that something exists is often quite difficult, and this difficulty is often mistaken for evidence that the claim is true…Presented as I am periodically with these and other fantastical claims, I sometimes feel a little like a formally dressed teetotaler at a drunken orgy for reiterating that not being able to conclusively refute the claims does not constitute evidence for them.”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 3, “Pseudoscience” (pp. 95-96; ellipsis represents elision of new age examples)

“There surely is something to these terms, but too often they’re the result of minds intent on discovering meaning where there is only probability.”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 2, “Probability and Coincidence” (p. 62)

“If we’re not keenly aware of the choices we’re making, we’re not likely to work for better ones.”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 5, “Statistics, Trade-Offs, and Society” (p. 176)

“Innumerate people characteristically have a strong tendency to personalize—to be misled by their own experiences, or by the media’s focus on individuals and drama.”

John Allen Paulos

Introduction (p. 6)
Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988)

“A tendency to drastically underestimate the frequency of coincidences is a prime characteristic of innumerates, who generally accord great significance to correspondences of all sorts while attributing too little significance to quite conclusive but less flashy statistical evidence.”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 2, “Probability and Coincidence” (p. 35)

John Allen Paulos Quotes about people

“Too often, this concern for the big picture is simply obscurantist and is put forward by people who prefer vagueness and mystery to (partial) answers. Vagueness is at times necessary and mystery is never in short supply, but I don’t think they’re anything to worship. Genuine science and mathematical precision are more intriguing than are the “facts” published in supermarket tabloids or a romantic innumeracy which fosters credulity, stunts skepticism, and dulls one to real imponderables.”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 4, “Whence Innumeracy?” (pp. 126-127)

“I remember thinking of mathematics as a kind of omnipotent protector. You could prove things to people and they would have to believe you whether they liked you or not.”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 4, “Whence Innumeracy?” (p. 99)

“The connections among morality, prudence, and religion are complicated and beyond my concerns here. I would like to counter, however, the claim regularly made by religious people that atheists and agnostics are somehow less moral or law-abiding than they. There is absolutely no evidence for this, and I suspect whatever average distance there is along the nebulous dimension of morality has the opposite algebraic sign.”

John Allen Paulos

Part 3 “Four Psycho-Mathematical Arguments”, Chapter 5 “The Gambling Argument (and Emotions from Prudence to Fear)” (p. 139)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

“The necessity of this psychic stepping back (or up) to the metalevel is probably what is meant when people say that a sense of perspective is needed for an appreciation of humor. It also explains why dogmatists, idealogues, and others with one-track minds are often notoriously humorless.”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Mathematics and Humor: A Study of the Logic of Humor (1980), Chapter 2, “Axioms, Levels, and Iteration” (p. 27)

John Allen Paulos Quotes about thinking

“To follow foolish precedents, and wink with both eyes, is easier than to think.”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 3, “Pseudoscience” (p. 67; quoting William Cowper)

“You would think that the obvious irreligious objection would come to almost anyone’s mind when reading a religious tome or holy book. What if you don’t believe the holy book’s presuppositions and narrative claims and simply ask for independent argument or evidence for God’s existence? What if you’re not persuaded by the argument that God exists because His assertion that He exists and discussion of His various exploits appear in this book about Him that believers say He inspired?”

John Allen Paulos

Part 2 “Four Subjective Arguments”, Chapter 2 “The Argument from Prophecy (and the Bible Codes)” (p. 63)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

“It’s time to let the secret out: mathematics is not primarily a matter of plugging numbers into formulas and performing rote computations. It is a way of thinking and questioning that may be unfamiliar to many of us, but is available to almost all of us.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Introduction (p. 3)
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

John Allen Paulos Quotes

“Any bit of nonsense can be computerized—astrology, biorhythms, the I Ching—but that doesn’t make the nonsense any more valid.”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 3, “Pseudoscience” (p. 68)

“Bad things happen periodically, and they’re going to happen to somebody. Why not you?”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 4, “Whence Innumeracy?” (p. 110)

“The moral, again, is that some unlikely event is likely to occur, whereas it’s much less likely that a particular one will…The paradoxical conclusion is that it would be very unlikely for unlikely events not to occur. If you don’t specify a predicted event precisely, there are an indeterminate number of ways for an event of that general kind to take place.”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 2, “Probability and Coincidence” (pp. 37-38; ellipsis represents elision of examples)

Way

“Correlation and causation are two quite different words, and the innumerate are more prone to mistake them than most.”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 5, “Statistics, Trade-Offs, and Society” (p. 159)

“There’s always enough random success to justify almost anything to someone who wants to believe.”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 2, “Probability and Coincidence” (p. 44)

Success

“The whole weight of science is the prima facie evidence against a miracle having occurred.”

John Allen Paulos

Part 2 “Four Subjective Arguments”, Chapter 5 “The Argument from Interventions (and Miracles, Prayers, and Witnesses)” (p. 88)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

Science

“Confirmation of a person’s unreliable statement by another unreliable person makes the statement even less reliable.”

John Allen Paulos

Part 2 “Four Subjective Arguments”, Chapter 2 “The Argument from Prophecy (and the Bible Codes)” (p. 65)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

Personality , Making love

“Claiming that a holy book’s claims are undeniable because the book itself claims them to be is convincing only to the convinced.”

John Allen Paulos

Part 2 “Four Subjective Arguments”, Chapter 2 “The Argument from Prophecy (and the Bible Codes)” (p. 64)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

Books

“Rigid distinctions between the deep and the shallow are generally themselves quite superficial.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Section 5, “Food , Book Reviews, Sports, Obituaries” Introduction (p. 169)
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

“In general, any differences between two groups will always be greatly accentuated at the extremes.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Section 2, “Local, Social, and Business Issues” Chapter 11, “Company Charged with Ethnic Bias in Hiring” (p. 60)
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

“You can only predict things after they’ve happened.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Section 1, “Politics, Economics, and the Nation” Introduction (p. 7; quoting Eugene Ionesco)
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

“Together the, two ingredients—a perceived incongruity with a point and an appropriate emotional climate—seem to be both necessary and sufficient for humor.”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Mathematics and Humor: A Study of the Logic of Humor (1980), Chapter 1, “Mathematics and Humor” (p. 10)

“While not a panacea, candidly recognizing the absence of any good logical arguments for God’s existence, giving up on divine allies and advocates as well as taskmasters and tormentors, and prizing a humane, reasonable, and brave outlook just might help move this world a bit closer to a heaven on earth.”

John Allen Paulos

Part 3 “Four Psycho-Mathematical Arguments”, Chapter 6 “Atheists, Agnostics, and “Brights”” (p. 149)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

World , God , Help

“It’s always healthy to recognize facts.”

John Allen Paulos

Part 3 “Four Psycho-Mathematical Arguments”, Chapter 6 “Atheists, Agnostics, and “Brights”” (p. 146)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

“The universe acts on us, we adapt to it, and the notions that we develop as a result, including the mathematical ones, are in a sense taught us by the universe. Evolution has selected those of our ancestors (both human and not) whose behavior and thought were consistent with the workings of the universe.”

John Allen Paulos

Part 3 “Four Psycho-Mathematical Arguments”, Chapter 4 “The Universality Argument (and the Relevance of Morality and Mathematics)” (p. 131)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

Sense , Behavior , Mathematics , Universe

“It’s become somewhat fashionable to say that religion and science are growing together and are no longer incompatible. This convergence is, in my opinion, illusory. In fact, I don’t believe that any attempt to combine these very disparate bodies of ideas can succeed intellectually.”

John Allen Paulos

Part 2 “Four Subjective Arguments”, Chapter 5 “The Argument from Interventions (and Miracles, Prayers, and Witnesses)” (pp. 88-89)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

Idea , Fashion , Religion , Science

“For the record, natural selection is a highly nonrandom process that acts on the genetic variation produced by random mutation and genetic drift and results in those organisms with more adaptive traits differentially surviving and reproducing.”

John Allen Paulos

Part 1 “Four Classical Arguments”, Chapter 2 “The Argument from Design (and Some Creationist Calculations)” (p. 19)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

Nature

“Define God in a sufficiently nebulous way as beauty, love, mysterious complexity, or the ethereal taste of strawberry shortcake, and most atheists become theists. Still, although one can pose as Humpty Dumpty and aver, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less,” others needn’t play along.”

John Allen Paulos

Preface (p. xv; the quote is from Alice in Wonderland)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

God , Beauty , Way , Love

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

John Allen Paulos

Preface (p. xiii; quoting Voltaire)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

Making love

“Almost any bunkum has some partial validity, and we regularly read into the confusing mess what we want to see.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Conclusion (p. 202)
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

Reading

“Always be smart; seldom be certain.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Conclusion (p. 201)
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

“There is a fine line between public expressions of faith and aggressive declarations thereof, and religious tolerance is inversely proportional to the latter.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Source: A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995), Chapter 50, “Which Way Mecca?” (p. 198)

Faith

“There are, of course, innumerable abuses, countless possible misinterpretations, and depressingly many biased studies, but, done right, the process works; it yields knowledge.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Source: A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995), Chapter 42, “New Survey Reveal Changing Attitudes” (p. 180)

Knowledge , Study

“The fashion pages have always puzzled me. In my smugly ignorant view, the articles appear to be so full of fluff and nonsense as to make the astrology columns seem insightful by comparison.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Source: A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995), Chapter 40, “Top Designs for the Busy Working Woman” (p. 173)

Fashion , Appearance , Making love

“Gullible citizens are a demagogue’s dream.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Section 4, “Science, Medicine, and the Environment” Chapter 38 “More Dismal Math Scores for U.S. Students” (p. 165)
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

Dreams

“Two dangers threaten the world—order and disorder.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Source: A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995), Chapter 27, “Special Investigator Says Full Story Not Told” (p. 123; quoting Paul Valéry)

World

“When the law’s on your side, pound the law. When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. And when neither is on your side, pound the table.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Section 3, “Lifestyle, Spin, and Soft News” Chapter 23, “Tsongkerclintkinbro Wins” (p. 106)
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

Law

“Even the most superficial of a newspaper reveals an important aspect of human psychology: our preoccupation with the short term.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Source: A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995), Chapter 21, “Researchers Look to Local News for Trends” (p. 96)

“One can and should debate whether the tests in question are appropriate for the purposes at hand, but one shouldn’t be surprised when normal curves behave normally.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Section 2, “Local, Social, and Business Issues” Chapter 11, “Company Charged with Ethnic Bias in Hiring” (p. 61)
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

Question

“Having been involved in a couple of lawsuits as an expert probability witness and having observed that a prudent skepticism is often less prized than an indefensible certainty, I turned down preliminary requests from both sides to testify.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Source: A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995), Chapter 9, “Fraud Alleged in Pennsylvania Senate Race” (p. 45)