TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it... That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That�s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index O > Category: Odds

Odds Quotes (6 quotes)

~~[Attributed without source; Very dubious]~~ You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 10-12 to 1.
Often seen, virally spread, but always without a source citation. If you can provide a primary source, please contact Webmaster. Until then the quote should be regarded as not authenticated. The odds are seen variously expressed as “10-12”, “10 or 12”, “1012”, “10^12”, or “trillion”. [All this sloppiness makes the quote a very dubious one. —Webmaster.]
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Bet (13)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)

Everest for me, and I believe for the world, is the physical and symbolic manifestation of overcoming odds to achieve a dream.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Belief (615)  |  Dream (222)  |  Everest (10)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Physical (518)  |  Symbolic (16)  |  World (1850)

Science and religion are not at odds. Science is simply too young to understand.
Angels & Demons. Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 35
Science quotes on:  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Simply (53)  |  Understand (648)  |  Young (253)

Statistically the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you would think the mere fact of existence would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. We are alive against the stupendous odds of genetics, infinitely outnumbered by all the alternates who might, except for luck, be in our places.
In 'On Probability and Possibility', The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Alive (97)  |  Alternate (3)  |  Being (1276)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Infinitely (13)  |  Luck (44)  |  Outnumber (2)  |  Probability (135)  |  Small (489)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Stupendous (13)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Think (1122)

Until its results have gone through the painful process of publication, preferably in a refereed journal of high standards, scientific research is just play. Publication is an indispensable part of science. “Publish or perish” is not an indictment of the system of academia; it is a partial prescription for creativity and innovation. Sustained and substantial publication favors creativity. Novelty of conception has a large component of unpredictability. ... One is often a poor judge of the relative value of his own creative efforts. An artist’s ranking of his own works is rarely the same as that of critics or of history. Most scientists have had similar experiences. One’s supply of reprints for a pot-boiler is rapidly exhausted, while a major monograph that is one’s pride and joy goes unnoticed. The strategy of choice is to increase the odds favoring creativity by being productive.
In 'Scientific innovation and creativity: a zoologist’s point of view', American Zoologist (1982), 22, 233-234.
Science quotes on:  |  Academia (4)  |  Artist (97)  |  Being (1276)  |  Choice (114)  |  Component (51)  |  Conception (160)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Critic (21)  |  Effort (243)  |  Exhaust (22)  |  Experience (494)  |  Favor (69)  |  Favored (5)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Increase (225)  |  Indictment (2)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Innovation (49)  |  Journal (31)  |  Joy (117)  |  Judge (114)  |  Large (398)  |  Major (88)  |  Monograph (5)  |  Most (1728)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Often (109)  |  Painful (12)  |  Part (235)  |  Partial (10)  |  Perish (56)  |  Play (116)  |  Poor (139)  |  Preferably (2)  |  Prescription (18)  |  Pride (84)  |  Process (439)  |  Productive (37)  |  Publication (102)  |  Publish (42)  |  Rank (69)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Rarely (21)  |  Referee (8)  |  Relative (42)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Same (166)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Similar (36)  |  Standard (64)  |  Strategy (13)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Supply (100)  |  Sustain (52)  |  System (545)  |  Through (846)  |  Unnoticed (5)  |  Unpredictability (7)  |  Value (393)  |  Work (1402)

Why then does science work? The answer is that nobody knows. It is a complete mystery—perhaps the complete mystery&mdashwhy the human mind should be able to understand anything at all about the wider universe. ... Perhaps it is because our brains evolved through the working of natural law that they somehow resonate with natural law. ... But the mystery, really, is not that we are at one with the universe, but that we are so to some degree at odds with it, different from it, and yet can understand something about it. Why is this so?
Coming of Age in the Milky Way (1988), 385. In Vinoth Ramachandra, Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping our World (2008), 185.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Brain (281)  |  Complete (209)  |  Degree (277)  |  Different (595)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Law (46)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Really (77)  |  Resonate (2)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Something (718)  |  Through (846)  |  Understand (648)  |  Universe (900)  |  Why (491)  |  Wide (97)  |  Work (1402)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.