Chance News 49: Difference between revisions
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<blockquote>Probability arises from an opposition of contrary chances or causes, by which the mind is not allowed to fix on either side, but is incessantly tost [sic] from one to another, and at one moment is determined to consider an object as existent, and at another moment as the contrary.</blockquote> | <blockquote>Probability arises from an opposition of contrary chances or causes, by which the mind is not allowed to fix on either side, but is incessantly tost [sic] from one to another, and at one moment is determined to consider an object as existent, and at another moment as the contrary.</blockquote> | ||
<div align=right>David Hume, | <div align=right>David Hume,<br> | ||
"A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects," 1739-1740<br> | "A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects," 1739-1740<br> | ||
cited by Leon Wieseltier, "Contrary Chances," The New Republic, June 17, 2009</div align=right> | cited by Leon Wieseltier, "Contrary Chances," The New Republic, June 17, 2009</div align=right> | ||
Revision as of 15:37, 10 June 2009
Quotations
Probability arises from an opposition of contrary chances or causes, by which the mind is not allowed to fix on either side, but is incessantly tost [sic] from one to another, and at one moment is determined to consider an object as existent, and at another moment as the contrary.
"A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects," 1739-1740
Submitted by Margaret Cibes
Forsooths
Steven J. Dubner of the New York Times writes about Bernice Geiger, a person who "never took vacations" for fear of her embezzlement being discovered by a fill-in employee; she "was arrested in 1961 for embezzling more than $2 million over the course of many years." Eventually, "after prison Geiger went to work for a banking oversight agency to help stop embezzlement."
Geiger's "biggest contribution: looking for employees who failed to take vacation. This simple metric turned out to have strong predictive power in stopping embezzlement."