Charles Seife Quotes

“Contrary to what our brains are telling us, there's no mystical force that imbues a winner with a streak of luck, nor is there a cosmic sense of justice that ensures that a loser's luck will turn around. The universe doesn't care one whit whether you've been winning or losing; each roll of the dice is just like every other.”

“If you want to get people to believe something really, really stupid, just stick a number on it.”

“The justice system can't be totally free of lies and distortion; after all, courts are chock-full of lawyers.”

“If you want to convince the world that a fish can sense your emotions, only one statistical measure will suffice: the p-value.”

“We tend to shy away from data that challenges our assumptions, that erodes our preconceptions. Getting rid of our wrong ideas is a painful and difficult process, yet it's that very process that makes data truly useful. A fact becomes information when it challenges our assumptions. These challenges are the raw material that forces our ideas to evolve, our tastes to change, our minds to grow.”

“The body, the house of the spirit, is under the power of pleasure and pain. And if a man is ruled by his body then this man can never be free.”