Harold Jeffreys Quotes

9 Sourced Quotes

What the use of P [the significance level] implies, therefore, is that a hypothesis that may be true may be rejected because it has not predicted observable results that have not occurred.

Harold Jeffreys
The real difficulty about vulcanism is not to see how it can start, but how it can stop.

Harold Jeffreys
I have no objection to the study of likelihood as such.

Harold Jeffreys
The problem of the origin and development of the solar system suffers from the label "speculative." It is frequently said that as we were not there when the system was formed, we cannot legitimately arrive at any idea as to how it was formed.

Harold Jeffreys
We have to come back to something like ordinary language after all when we
want to talk "about" mathematics!

Harold Jeffreys
An observation, strictly, is only a sensation. Nobody means that we should reject everything but sensations. But as soon as we go beyond sensations we are making inferences.

Harold Jeffreys
Damn the solar system. Bad light; planets too distant; pestered with comets; feeble contrivance; could make a better one myself.

Harold Jeffreys
A formal and consistent theory of inductive processes cannot represent the operation of every human mind in detail; it will represent an ideal mind, but it will help the actual mind to approximate that ideal.

Harold Jeffreys
There are some current 'theories' that, when divested of begged questions, reduce to the non-controversial statement, 'Here are some facts and there may be some relation between them.'

Harold Jeffreys