“It is not theory, but actual statistical experience, which forces us to the conclusion that, however little we know of what will happen in the individual instance, yet the frequency of a large number of instances is distributed round the mode in a manner more and more smooth and uniform the greater the number of individual instances. When this distribution round the mode does not take place... then we assert that some cause other than chance is at work.”

— Karl Pearson

"The Chances of Death" (1895)

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Karl Pearson 65

English mathematician and biometrician 1857–1936

David Gubbins (1947) British university teacher

[Seismology and plate tectonics, 1990, http://books.google.com/books?id=tZRxPzwoChIC&pg=PA5] (p. 5)
Seismology and Plate Tectonics (1990)

“Society is more than a number of individuals. It is a number of individuals among whom certain definite and more or less stable relations exist.”

Paul Sweezy book The Theory of Capitalist Development

The Theory of Capitalist Development (1942)

“It has been said, that the principle involved in the above and in similar applications is that of the equal distribution of our knowledge, or rather of our ignorance the assigning to different states of things of which we know nothing, and upon the very ground that we know nothing, equal degrees of probability. I apprehend, however, that this is an arbitrary method of procedure. Instances may occur, and one such has been adduced, in which different hypotheses lead to the same final conclusion.”

George Boole (1815–1864) English mathematician, philosopher and logician

Source: 1850s, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854), p. 370

“[O]ne may confidently hope, that this will not be the instance, in which the last blow will be struck at that manly, that generous mode of terminating quarrels between the common people, a mode by which the common people of England have, for ages, been distinguished from those of all other countries. ... [T]he occasion calls for some remark upon those exertions, which, of late, have been, and which yet are, making in every part of the country, with the obvious, and, in many instances, with the declared, intention, of utterly eradicating the practice of boxing; than which, I am thoroughly persuaded, nothing could be more injurious, whether considered as to its effects in civil life, or in its higher and more important effects on the people regarded as the members of a state, and, of course, always opposed to some other state, and therefore always liable to be called upon to perform the duties of war.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

‘Boxing’, Political Register (10 August 1805), p. 195
1800s

“People have many myths about anger that cause them to categorize the issue in a certain way. For instance, some people consider anger to be biological or hereditary, but this myth does not have any solid foundation. Although some people are more prone to anger due to their psychophysical make-up or emersion in the modes of passion and ignorance, their socialization or quality of association will have a greater impact on their reactions. Although we do bring forth other infl uences into a situation such as our karma, which affects the ways in which we respond to specifi c situations, it is a myth that anger is biological and a permanent, unchangeable aspect of the body.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior IV: Conquering the Enemies of the Mind (Hari-Nama Press, 2004), Chapter 3

“Since as we have seen the entrepreneurial qualification is something which, like many other qualities, is distributed in an ethnically homogeneous group according to the law of error, the number of individuals who satisfy progressively diminishing standards in this respect continually increases. Hence, neglecting exceptional cases — of which the existence of a few Europeans in a negro population would be an example — with the progressive lightening of the task continually more people can and will become entrepreneurs, wherefore the successful appearance of an entrepreneur is followed by the appearance not simply of some others, but of ever greater numbers, though progressively less qualified.”

Joseph Alois Schumpeter The Theory of Economic Development

The Theory of Economic Development (1934), Ch. 6 : The Business Cycle

“Madness, like small fish, runs in hosts, in vast numbers of instances.”

Philip K. Dick The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

Page 236
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982)

“…no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.”

Karl Popper book The Logic of Scientific Discovery

The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934)

“When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

David Hume book An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Section 12 : Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy Pt. 3
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)

“Relative knowledge pertains to the mind and not to the Self. It is therefore illusory and not permanent. Take a scientist, for instance. He formulates a theory that the Earth is round and goes on to prove it on an incontrovertible basis. When he falls asleep the whole idea vanishes; his mind is left a blank. What does it matter whether the world remains round or flat when he is asleep? So you see the futility of all such relative knowledge. One should go beyond relative knowledge and abide in the Self. Real knowledge is such experience, and not apprehension by the mind.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Abide as the Self

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Karl Pearson 65

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