John Polkinghorne Quotes

A very small cause which escapes our notice determines a considerable effect that we cannot fail to see, and then we say that the effect is due to chance.

Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities.

Very low probability events occur very rarely, but sometimes they do happen.

It sometimes seems to me that the whole course of English history was one of accident, confusion, chance and unintended consequences - there's no real pattern.

Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty, and leave nether room nor demand for a theory of probabilities.

The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace.

History is totally unpredictable.

Historians emphasize contingency, complexity, and the unanticipated ... Few principles apply all the time.

Life is so unpredictable.

History is about great forces, yes, but also about contingency.

The world changed from having the determinism of a clock to having the contingency of a pinball machine.

You never know why something works or doesn't.

It's a lot of random situations that combine in a certain volatile form and create a bigger-than- the-whole situation that nobody could have predicted.

What fascinates me are the turning points where history could have been different.

If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters, they might write all the books in the British Museum.

Nothing is ever guaranteed, and all that came before doesn't predicate what you might do next.

History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.

Life is a school of probability

How fragile and unpredictable the course of history is.

I can see ... only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen.

… in history, so many circumstances of a small and accidental nature are relevant, that no broad and simple uniformities are possible.

If innovations were predictable, they wouldn't be discoveries.

Complex, statistically improbable things are by their nature more difficult to explain than simple, statistically probable things.

I think you should always bear in mind that entropy is not on your side.

The world is unpredictable.