“The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing factory.”

Quoted in: Cliffe Knechtle (1986) Give Me an Answer, p. 70

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 24, 2026. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulti…" by Edwin Grant Conklin?

Edwin Grant Conklin4

American biologist and zoologist 1863–1952

Related quotes

“We have long observed that every neurosis has the result, and therefore probably the purpose, of forcing the patient out of real life, of alienating him from actuality.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

General Psychological Theory: Papers on Metapsychology https://books.google.com/books?id=T3F2XT_LxNwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=isbn:1416573593&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAvLT854_XAhVHKGMKHefOBU4Q6AEIJjAA Touchstone, (1963); Ch.1, "Formulation Regarding the Two Principles in Mental Functioning", (1911) <br class="br">1910s

“A person, who reads only to print, to all probability reads amiss”

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic

Briefe, das Studium der Theologie betressend (1780-81), Vierundzwanzigster Brief; cited from Bernhard Suphan (ed.) Herders sämmtliche Werke (Berlin: Weidmann, 1877-1913) vol. 10, p. 260. Translation from Samuel Taylor Coleridge Biographia Literaria (London: Rest Fenner, 1817) vol. 1, ch. 11, pp. 233-34.
Context: With the greatest possible solicitude avoid authorship. Too early or immoderately employed, it makes the head waste and the heart empty; even were there no other worse consequences. A person, who reads only to print, to all probability reads amiss; and he, who sends away through the pen and the press every thought, the moment it occurs to him, will in a short time have sent all away, and will become a mere journeyman of the printing-office, a compositor.

“One result of this obscurity we probably find in the ease with which the physicist, as compared with either the pure mathematician or the historian, is entangled in the meshes of such pseudosciences as natural theology and spiritualism.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Preface to the First Edition
The Grammar of Science (1900)

“It is probable a true history of human events would show that a far larger proportion of our acts are the results of sudden impulses and accident, than of that reason of which we so much boast.”

James Fenimore Cooper book The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea

The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea http://www.amazon.com/The-Pilot-A-Tale-Sea/dp/1490555811 (1829); Preface <br class="br">The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea (1823)

“The process of planning is very valuable, for forcing you to think hard about what you are doing, but the actual plan that results from it is probably useless”

Marc Andreessen (1971) American entrepreneur, investor, and software engineer

Source: "Book Review: TEMPO Timing, Tactics and Strategy in Narrative Driven Decision Making by Venkatesh Rao" http://www.lesc.net/blog/book-review-tempo-timing-tactics-and-strategy-narrative-driven-decision-making-venkatesh-rao

“From the standpoint of observation, then, we must regard it as a highly probable hypothesis that the beginnings of the mental life date from as far back as the beginnings of life at large.”

Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) German physician, physiologist, philosopher and professor

Source: Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1904, p. 31

“Probability fractions arise from our knowledge and from our ignorance.”

Ian Hacking (1936) Canadian philosopher

Source: The Emergence Of Probability, 1975, Chapter 14, Equipossibility, p. 132.

“It has been asserted - and this is no overstatement - that whereas other sciences draw their conclusions from what we know, the science of probability derives its most important results from what we do not know.”

Richard von Mises (1883–1953) Austrian physicist and mathematician

Second Lecture, The Elements of the Theory of Probability, p. 30
Probability, Statistics And Truth - Second Revised English Edition - (1957)

“From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts.”

Tom Stoppard (1937) British playwright

From principles is derived probability, but truth is obtained only from facts. - Jesse Olney (1798 - 1872), The National Preceptor (Goodwin, 1830), Lesson LXXXV: "Select Sentences," rule # 19 (p. 171).
Misattributed

“If the concept of probability and the formulae of the theory of probability are used without a clear understanding of the collectives involved, one may arrive at entirely misleading results.”

Richard von Mises (1883–1953) Austrian physicist and mathematician

Fifth Lecture, Applications in Statistics and the Theory of Errors, p. 166
Probability, Statistics And Truth - Second Revised English Edition - (1957)

“The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing factory.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Edwin Grant Conklin4

Related quotes

Related topics