Probability theory is nothing but common sense reduced to calculation.
Interpretation
Probability theory simplifies and quantifies everyday reasoning.
Pierre-Simon Laplace captures the essence of probability theory by suggesting that it is a mathematical refinement of the intuitive judgments we make in day-to-day life. In essence, he implies that the principles of probability help us make sense of randomness and uncertainty through systematic computation and analysis, elevating common sense to a rigorous framework.
In practice
In a presentation about risk assessment, one could use Laplace's quote to highlight the importance of quantitative analysis.
Without any doubt, the regularity which astronomy shows us in the movements of the comets takes place in all phenomena. The trajectory of a simple molecule of air or vapour is regulated in a manner as certain as that of the planetary orbits; the only difference between them is that which is contributed by our ignorance. Probability is relative in part to this ignorance, and in part to our knowledge.
It is interesting thus to follow the intellectual truths of analysis in the phenomena of nature. This correspondence, of which the system of the world will offer us numerous examples, makes one of the greatest charms attached to mathematical speculations.
All the effects of Nature are only the mathematical consequences of a small number of immutable laws.
The word 'chance' then expresses only our ignorance of the causes of the phenomena that we observe to occur and to succeed one another in no apparent order. Probability is relative in part to this ignorance, and in part to our knowledge.
Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective positions of the beings which compose it, if moreover this intelligence were vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in the same formula both the movements of the largest bodies in the universe and those of the lightest atom; to it nothing would be uncertain, and the future as the past would be present to its eye.
The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.
I think we're just scratching the surface. One of the most exciting aspects of 23andMe is that we're enabling you to watch a revolution unfold live during your lifetime, and I think that the decoding of the genome, in my opinion, is the most fascinating discovery of our lifetime, and you get to be part of it.
When I left NASA, I was looking at how you could use space technologies for developing countries' work.
Imagine all the food mankind has produced over the past 8,000 years. Now consider that we need to produce that same amount again β but in just the next 40 years if we are to feed our growing and hungry world.
One lesson astronomy tells us is that we're a tiny mote in a hostile void, and help is too far away.
A most unfailing experience... of the excitement of sublunary (that is, human) natures by the conjunctions and aspects of the planets has instructed and compelled my unwilling belief.
While consumers may be more shocked by pink slime or the feeding of Prozac to poultry, the routine feeding of millions of pounds of human antibiotics to chickens presents a much graver threat.
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