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.
The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests.
Round about the accredited and orderly facts of every science there ever floats a sort of dust-cloud of exceptional observations, of occurrences minute and irregular and seldom met with, which it always proves more easy to ignore than to attend to... Anyone will renovate his science who will steadily look after the irregular phenomena, and when science is renewed, its new formulas often have more of the voice of the exceptions in them than of what were supposed to be the rules.
One of the liberating effects of science fiction when I was a teenager was precisely its ability to tune me into all sorts of strange data and make me realize that I wasnβt as totally isolated in perceiving the world as being monstrous and crazy
Chimpanzees, more than any other living creature, have helped us to understand that there is no sharp line between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. It's a very blurry line, and it's getting more blurry all the time.
Why is there space rather than no space? Why is space three-dimensional? Why is space big? We have a lot of room to move around in. How come it's not tiny? We have no consensus about these things. We're still exploring them.
At their best, at their most creative, science and engineering are attributes of liberty-noble expressions of man's God-given right to investigate and explore the universe without fear of social or political or religious reprisals.
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