False Positives Quotes

It is better to destroy 100 innocent people than to let one guilty one escape.

Guessing right for the wrong reason does not merit scientific immortality.

Aside from all that, we recall that antibodies to malaria and other diseases prevalent in Africa show up as HIV-positive on tests.

Be careful of hubris about ideas—especially your own. Remember always, that there is one commonality between all the good ideas that were ever created and all the bad ideas: The people you created them thought that they were good ideas.

I know that charity covereth a multitude of sins; but it does not call evil good, because a good man has done it; it does not excuse inconsistencies, because the inconsistent brother has a high name and a fervent spirit; crookedness and worldliness are still crookedness and worldliness, though exhibited in one who seems to have reached no common height of attainment.

I used to think of it as a joke that all paranoids were right. That was a joke in the '60s, but now I'm convinced that people should be paranoid reflexively - and then pare it down from there if there's any indication that they're wrong.

Using MO to link crimes can be problematic.

Yes, there is a conspiracy, in fact there are a great number of conspiracies that are all tripping each other up. And all of those conspiracies are run by paranoid fantasists and ham-fisted clowns. If you are on a list targeted by the CIA, you really have nothing to worry about. If however, you have a name similar to somebody on a list targeted by the CIA, then you are dead.

There are few ironclad rules of diplomacy but to one there is no exception. When an official reports that talks were useful, it can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished.

A paperwork error can get you on the fly list. A name similar to someone else can get you on the fly list, so there's any number of opportunities where mistakes or abuses could probably put somebody in that horrible position of a government agency really clawing back your rights.

Polygraph tests are 20th-century witchcraft.

We usually see only the things we are looking for- so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.

Books about spies and traitors - and the congressional hearings that follow the exposure of traitors - generally assume that false-negative errors are much worse than false-positive errors.

Fingerprint matching is - you know the whole thing about how no two fingerprints are alike? That's not strictly true.

Polygraphs have sparked a fierce debate for at least a century.

I remember in 2000, when President Clinton came to Cartagena just before Plan Colombia started, the country was on the verge of becoming a failed state. Today, we are one of the most solid democracies, where institutions are working, where the scandals such as false positives have come to light because of those functioning institutions.

I would rather there's somebody who is just a wee bit down in the dumps believing that they've got depression and going to the doctor and getting it checked out, than not, I'd rather that everybody was given the benefit of the doubt.

And yet.. even if you had been right, it would only have been by accident. A broken clock is right two times a day.

In a rising market, enough of your bad ideas will pay off so that you'll never learn that you should have fewer ideas.

Because on that watch list, they would be like, yeah, your name - they told me like, yeah, your name matches the name of a terrorist or someone that they're watching. I was just like, what terrorist is running around with a Hebrew first name and a Muslim - Arabic last - I'm like, who's that guy?

I am not opposed to the limited use of polygraphs in a case where a person is suspected of wrongdoing. But widespread use of the polygraph as a screening tool goes far beyond what is acceptable.

They think that intelligence is about noticing things are relevant (detecting patterns); in a complex world, intelligence consists in ignoring things that are irrelevant (avoiding false patterns)

It is better to predict dramatic things that don't happen than boring things that do.

The use of the polygraph has done little more than create confusion, ambiguity and mistakes.

Early on, when you're working in a new area of science, you have to think about all the pitfalls and things that could lead you to believe that you had done something when you hadn't, and, even worse, leading others to believe it.