Probability Theory Quotes

“A paradox is simply an error out of control; i.e. one that has trapped so many unwary minds that it has gone public, become institutionalized in our literature, and taught as truth.”
― E.T. Jaynes, Probability Theory: The Logic of Science

“if fallacious reasoning always led to absurd conclusions, it would be found out at once and corrected. But once an easy, shortcut mode of reasoning has led to a few correct results, almost everybody accepts it; those who try to warn against it are not listened to.”
― E.T. Jaynes, Probability Theory: The Logic of Science

“Not only in probability theory, but in all mathematics, it is the careless use of infinite sets, and of infinite and infinitesimal quantities, that generates most paradoxes.”
― E.T. Jaynes, Probability Theory: The Logic of Science

“passage to a limit should always be the last operation, not the first.”
― E.T. Jaynes, Probability Theory: The Logic of Science

“something which is absurd or logically contradictory, but which appears at first glance to be the result of sound reasoning.”
― E.T. Jaynes, Probability Theory: The Logic of Science