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Quote by Ray Bradbury

Work

Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

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Author

Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury, born on August 22, 1920, and died on June 5, 2012, was an influential American science fiction writer, playwright, and poet. His works are known for their unique imagination and profound philosophical insights, which have had a profound impact on the science fiction genre. more

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“Many people confuse the statement “almost all terrorists are Moslems” with “almost all Moslems are terrorists.” Assume that the first statement is true, that 99 percent of terrorists are Moslems. This would mean that only about .001 percent of Moslems are terrorists, since there are more than one billion Moslems and only, say, ten thousand terrorists, one in a hundred thousand. So the logical mistake makes you (unconsciously) overestimate the odds of a randomly drawn individual Moslem person (between the age of, say, fifteen and fifty) being a terrorist by close to fifty thousand times! [...]Our inferential machinery, that which we use in daily life, is not made for a complicated environment in which a statement changes markedly when its wording is slightly modified. Consider that in a primitive environment there is no consequential difference between the statements "most killers are wild animals" and "most wild animals are killers". There is an error here, but it is almost inconsequential. Our statistical intuitions have not evolved for a habitat in which these subtleties can make a big difference.”

“Whatever you're thinking of. Just don't. I don't want anything to do with it." "What I was about to say," said Miles, giving him an extremely dry look, "was that we, being on the side of truth and justice, need not stoop to such chicanery as, say, bribery, assassination or milder forms of physical diversion, or—heh!—blackmail. ... "If we're not stooping, what do you call that shell game with the Vortugalovs and the uterine replicator?" Ivan demanded indignantly. "A piece of wholly unexpected good fortune. None of us here had anything to do with it," Miles replied tranquilly. "So it's not a dirty trick if it's untraceable?" "Correct, Ivan. You learn fast.”