Peter Thiel Quotes

The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.

Statistics may be defined as "a body of methods for making wise decisions in the face of uncertainty.

I have been doing technology foresight for a number of years now on the level of scenario design, primarily. I want to become more rigorous with research methodology and statistical methods. I want to shift from creating clever SF scenarios to being a professional forecaster able to make rigorous predictions.

Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.

I'm not too worried about stats and stuff like that.

We must understand variation.

Statistics were magic like this: they could tell you with near-certainty that a thing would occur, without a hint of when or where.

I am not very good at statistics. I am also a poor thinker.

Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write!

Statistics is the grammar of science.

Statistics are no substitute for judgment.

I am incredibly bad at predicting the future; I am only smart enough to observe the present and listen to my intuition about tendencies.

I'm a lousy predictor of the future.

Some things, like the orbits of the planets, can be calculated far into the future. But that's atypical. In most contexts, there is a limit. Even the most fine-grained computation can only forecast British weather a few days ahead. There are limits to what can ever be learned about the future, however powerful computers become.

Statistics is the plural of anecdote.

Predictions are hard, especially about the future.

I'm always trying to calculate the mathematical probability of certain outcomes.

The nice thing about baseball is that all of the possible outcomes are known - it's not quite as messy as the real world. That makes the game an excellent playground for probability.

Statistics are there to be broken.

Probability is the very guide of life.

I always remind myself that what one observes is at best a combination of variance and returns, not just returns.

I don’t believe in statistics. I believe in calculus.

Data scientist is just a sexed up word for statistician.

You can be careful as far as you can, but you never know when you're going to fall over and break your ankle. It's like when you drive a car, you don't think about crashing, do you?

Statistics, one may hope, will improve gradually, and become good for something. Meanwhile, it is to be feared the crabbed satirist was partly right, as things go: "A judicious man," says he, "looks at Statistics, not to get knowledge, but to save himself from having ignorance foisted on him."