“Expectation is a statistical fiction, like having 2.5 children.”

— William Poundstone

Part One, Entropy, Gamblers Ruin, p. 50
Fortune's Formula (2005)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Expectation is a statistical fiction, like having 2.5 children." by William Poundstone?

William Poundstone 33

American writer 1955

Related quotes

“The odds continue to be stacked against children of color who made up nearly three-quarters of all poor children in 2018. With nearly one in four poor, they are more than 2.5 times more likely to be poor than White children.”

Marian Wright Edelman (1939) American children's rights activist

Ask the Question: When Are We Going to End Child Poverty in America? in The Charleston Chronicle https://www.charlestonchronicle.net/2019/09/23/ask-the-question-when-are-we-going-to-end-child-poverty-in-america/ (23 September 2019)

“I do more non-fiction writing. I have two memoirs, another nonfiction book, and I do lots of essays, journalism, poetry, and reporting. But I love the fiction. As you know I have a novel, a short story collection, and two children’s books. It’s more challenging to write fiction, but I’d like to do more of these. I don’t really prefer one over the other.”

Luis J. Rodriguez (1954) pinto poetry, Chicanismo, and Chicano literature

On his writing preferences in “An Interview with Luis J. Rodriguez” https://www.epl.org/an-interview-with-luis-j-rodriguez-2/ (Evanston Public Library; 2011)

“Memory is like fiction; or else it's fiction that's like memory.”

Haruki Murakami book The Elephant Vanishes

Source: The Elephant Vanishes

“To those who think that all this sounds like science fiction, we point out that yesterday's science fiction is today's fact. The Industrial Revolution has radically altered man's environment and way of life, and it is only to be expected that as technology is increasingly applied to the human body and mind, man himself will be altered as radically as his environment and way of life have been.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Control of Human Behavior", item 160
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“I am not interested in statistics that tell me things are not as bad as they seem. Things are horrible. I have met people crying about what is happening, but there is no solution yet. Our children are trying to tell us something, and we are not listening. I don't care what the statistics say.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

"Paths to Success: A Forum on African American Men" panel discussion (July 18, 2006), quoted in [Fulbright, Leslie, http://www.nospank.net/n-q19r.htm, Cosby, Others Say Black Men Still in Crisis, San Francisco Chronicle, (July 19, 2006)]