“The science of probability gives mathematical expression to our ignorance, not to our wisdom.”
Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones (1968)
Context: If everything, everything were known, statistical estimates would be unnecessary. The science of probability gives mathematical expression to our ignorance, not to our wisdom.
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Samuel R. Delany131
American author, professor and literary critic 1942Related quotes
“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.
“The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.”
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …
“Time is... the expression of our ignorance of the full microstate.”
Carlo Rovelli (1956) Italian physicist
"Forget time" (Aug, 2008)
“The assumptions and definitions of mathematics and science come from our intuition”
Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist
Methods of Mathematics Applied to Calculus, Probability, and Statistics (1985)
Context: The assumptions and definitions of mathematics and science come from our intuition, which is based ultimately on experience. They then get shaped by further experience in using them and are occasionally revised. They are not fixed for all eternity.
Roger Bacon book Opus Majus
cited in: Morris Kline (1969) Mathematics and the physical world. p. 1
Opus Majus, c. 1267
“Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.”
George Eliot book Daniel Deronda
Daniel Deronda (1876)
Proclus (412–485) Greek philosopher
As quoted by Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (1972)
Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author
The Richard Dimbleby Lecture: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (1996)