Prediction Quotes

204 Sourced quotes

Error held as truth has much the effect of truth. In politics and religion this fact upsets many confident predictions.

Paycheck discrimination is not the only obstacle preventing women from having the same economic opportunities as men. As our country continues to focus on our economic recovery, leveling the financial playing field for women must be a priority. According to recent predictions, within a generation, more families will be supported by women than men. If these primary breadwinners earn lower incomes, it won't just affect their families, but also consumer spending and our larger financial growth.

Predictions, prophecies, and perhaps even guidance — those who suggested this title to me must have hoped for such — even though occasional indulgences in such actions by statisticians has undoubtedly contributed to the characterization of a statistician as a man who draws straight lines from insufficient data to foregone conclusions!

Physical theories must not introduce as many arbitrary constants as there are phenomena to be accounted for; they must establish connections among the various experimental facts and, above all, must lead to predictions.

Henri Poincaré

To say that observations of the past are certain, whereas predictions are merely probable, is not the ultimate answer to the question of induction; it is only a sort of intermediate answer, which is incomplete unless a theory of probability is developed that explains what we should mean by "probable" and on what ground we can assert probabilities.

Hans Reichenbach

The only thing that we know about financial predictions of start-ups is that 100 percent of them are wrong

In this acausal world, scientists are helpless. Their predictions become postdictions- Their equations become justifications, their logic, illogic. Scientists turn reckless and mutter like gamblers who cannot stop betting. Scientists are buffoons, not because they are rational but because the cosmos is irrational. Or perhaps it is not because the cosmos is irrational but because they are rational. Who can say which, in an acausal world?

A physical theory cannot take the whole universe into account; but if it is to be complete enough to be satisfactory, and to make trustworthy predictions, it must take all relevant factors into account.

Science is about predictions based on predictable fact. Life is about surprises based on the unpredictable reality.

It is one thing to be able to make some useful predictions as to what is likely to happen... It is quite another thing to interfere, willfully to introduce new complications into an already tortuous social maze.

Clyde Kluckhohn

If a comet have not the orbit that astronomers have predicted - perturbed. If - like Halley's comet - it be late - even a year late - perturbed. When a train is an hour late, we have small opinion of the predictions of time tables. When a comet's a year late, all we ask is - that it be explained.

Some of the most wonderful aspects and consequences of evolution have been discovered only recently. This is in stark contrast to creationism, which offers a static view of the world, one that cannot be challenged or tested with reason. And because it cannot make predictions, it cannot lead to new discoveries, new medicines, or new ways to feed all of us.

The idea that physicists would in future have to study the theory of tensors created real panic amongst them following the first announcement that Einstein's predictions had been verified.

Alfred North Whitehead

The contradictory remarks of politicians are forgotten; the more asinine predictions of pundits are buried with mercy.

Theorists will often complain that experimentalists ignore their work. Let a theorist produce just one theory of the type sketched above (i.e., one that makes nonobvious verified predictions) and the world will jump to the conclusion (not always true) that he has a special insight into difficult problems.

A well-constructed theory must explain some of what is not understood, predict previously unknown phenomena, and, to be successful, have its predictions consistently confirmed. Furthermore, skeptics should not hesitate to question every possible assumption, no matter how basic.

Data-driven predictions can succeed-and they can fail. It is when we deny our role in the process that the odds of failure rise. Before we demand more of our data, we need to demand more of ourselves.

Medical Predictions fail not, as sometimes in acute Diseases, and wherein 'tis as dangerous to be sentenced by a Physician as a Judge.

There is nothing in Astronomy which shews the great Sagacity of Human Understanding, and its deep Penetration, more than a clear Explication of the Suddain Disappearings of the Sun and the Moon, that is, of their Eclipses; and the accurate Predictions when they are to come to pass, which the Astronomers can now foretell almost to a Minute.

A well-constructed theory must explain some of what is not understood, predict previously unknown phenomena, and, to be successful, have its predictions consistently confirmed. Furthermore, skeptics should not hesitate to question every possible assumption, no matter how basic.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The aim of every science is foresight (prevoyance). For the laws of established observation of phenomena are generally employed to foresee their succession. All men, however little advanced make true predictions, which are always based on the same principle, the knowledge of the future from the past.

Factual science may collect statistics, and make charts. But its predictions are, as has been well said, but past history reversed.

The only useful function of a statistician is to make predictions, and thus to provide a basis for action.

W. Edwards Deming

Letters to the editors of English and American newspapers often contain expressions of horror about the new terms that creep into the language, and these expressions are usually accompanied by dire predictions about ruination of the mother tongue.

By gradually studying matter, people finally take command of it. Their predictions concerning it, proved by the facts, become ever more accurate. They use it more widely and more frequently to satisfy their needs. There are no grounds to think that knowledge and our mastery over matter have bounds.

Dmitri Mendeleev