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Quote by Enrico Fermi

“When asked what he meant by a miracle: Oh, anything with a probability of less than 20%.”

Quote by Enrico Fermi

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Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi

Italian-American physicist and Nobel Prize winner. Fermi made numerous contributions to physics, particularly in the fields of nuclear physics and particle physics. In 1938, he discovered the neutron, and in 1942, he led the construction of the Chicago Pile-1, the world's first man-made nuclear reactor. more

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“In earlier times they had no statistics and so they had to fall back on lies. Hence the huge exaggerations of primitive literature, giants, miracles, wonders! It's the size that counts. They did it with lies and we do it with statistics: but it's all the same.”

“Religion shows a pattern of heredity which I think is similar to genetic heredity. ... There are hundreds of different religious sects, and every religious person is loyal to just one of these. ... The overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one their parents belonged to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favour, the best miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained-glass, the best music when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing compared to the matter of heredity.”

“Three quarters of the American population literally believe in religious miracles. The numbers who believe in the devil, in resurrection, in God doing this and that - it's astonishing. These numbers aren't duplicated anywhere else in the industrial world. You'd have to maybe go to mosques in Iran or do a poll among old ladies in Sicily to get numbers like this. Yet this is the American population.”