Main
- Posts
- Comments
Discussion
- Posts
- Comments

tjohnson314 comments on Rationality Quotes December 2014 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Salemicus 03 December 2014 10:33PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

CC Licenced

Tags: <quotes> quotes

Comments (440)

Sort By: Best

Show:

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: tjohnson314 17 December 2014 01:02:59AM 11 points [-]

"You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 10^12 to 1 against."

Ernest Rutherford

Comment author: gwern 04 January 2015 03:18:05AM 1 point [-]

Alas, as nice a quote as it is, it seems to be bogus:

previous discussion: http://lesswrong.com/lw/i7t/rationality_quotes_august_2013/9ljz
WP discussion to which I've added my failed attempts to find the original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ernest_Rutherford#Odds_of_1012_to_1.

Comment author: DanielLC 02 March 2015 07:35:43PM 0 points [-]

The neutrino anomaly was about 5*10^6 to 1 against. Not quite 10^12 to 1, but I still think it shows that odds that small aren't what they're cracked up to be.