Loren Eiseley Quotes

Having no unusual coincidence is far more unusual than any coincidence could possibly be.

The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing. Yet here we are, not only existing, but talking about existing. What can account for it? Can every one of those many parameters have been perfect by accident? At what point is it fair to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces?

By the laws of statistics we could probably approximate just how unlikely it is that it would happen. But people forget especially those who ought to know better, such as yourself that while the laws of statistics tell you how unlikely a particular coincidence is, they state just as firmly that coincidences do happen.

In baseball, you can do something poorly and still get credit. A pitcher could throw a bad ball, the batter hit a screaming line drive, and an outfielder make a fantastic diving catch. Yet, when you look at historical databases, 80% of the time when a ball is struck with that trajectory and velocity, it is a hit.

Fellas, it's all a numbers game. The more women you meet, the greater chance you have of finding the right one.

When asked what he meant by a miracle: Oh, anything with a probability of less than 20%.

Chance ... must be something more than the name we give to our ignorance.

Knox was engaged in a theological discussion with scientist John Scott Haldane. 'In a universe containing millions of planets,' reasoned Haldane, 'is it not inevitable that life should appear on at least one of them?' 'Sir,' replied Knox, 'if Scotland Yard found a body in your cabin trunk, would you tell them: 'There are millions of trunks in the world; surely one of them must contain a body? I think the would still want to know who put it there'.

The probability of ten consecutive heads is 0.1 percent; thus, when you have millions of coin tossers, or investors, in the end there will be thousands of very successful practitioners of coin tossing, or stock picking.

Blind nature will nearly always select the most probable, but man can let the most improbable become actual.

You know, it actually can happen. I mean, the chances of it happening are very rare, but it can happen actually. Which is crazy. Not that it—the chances of it are, like, you know, it's like probably ‘pigs could fly.' Like, I don't think pigs could fly, but actually sharks could be stuck in tornados. There could be a sharknado.

Lightning never strikes twice in the same place.

You have to raise $100 million, probably, to be serious.

Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.

Everybody believes in chance.

I hear the mournful wail of millions!

Must be a different Larry Wall. There are at least 137 of us in the U.S.

How true it is that our destinies are decided by nothings and that a small imprudence helped by some insignificant accident, as an acorn is fertilized by a drop of rain, may raise the trees on which perhaps we and others shall be crucified.

Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people think you are?

The notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.

Used to think that luck wuz luck and nuthin' else but luck-- It made no diff'rence how or when or where or why it struck; But sev'ral years ago I changt my mind, an' now proclaim That luck's a kind uv science--same as any other game.

The Law of Probabilities: the more things you try, the more likely one of them will work.

Why are atoms so small? ... Many examples have been devised to bring this fact home to an audience, none of them more impressive than the one used by Lord Kelvin: Suppose that you could mark the molecules in a glass of water, then pour the contents of the glass into the ocean and stir the latter thoroughly so as to distribute the marked molecules uniformly throughout the seven seas; if you then took a glass of water anywhere out of the ocean, you would find in it about a hundred of your marked molecules.

That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.

I think it's all a coincidence. I've pitched some poor games here and got a no-decision. But just give me the ball. I don't care where I pitch.