Quotes & Sayings About Making Predictions

There's no point in making predictions. It's not worth speculating because nothing is set in stone and things change all the time in football. Today there are opportunities that no one knows if they will come round again in the future. — Cristiano Ronaldo

most importantly, this prediction is less of a prophecy and more a way of discussing our present choices. If the discussion makes us choose differently, so that the prediction is proven wrong, all the better. What's the point of making predictions if they cannot change anything? — Yuval Noah Harari

A piece of paper doesn't make you a pastor any more than making predictions makes you a prophet. — D.R. Silva

Why are experts inferior to algorithms? One reason, which Meehl suspected, is that experts try to be clever, think outside the box, and consider complex combinations of features in making their predictions. Complexity may work in the odd case, but more often than not it reduces validity. Simple combinations of features are better. — Daniel Kahneman

Whenever you try to pick market tops and bottoms, you are making a prediction. Guessing what stock is going to outperform the market is forecasting, as is selling a stock for no apparent reason. Indeed, nearly all capital decisions made by most people are unconscious predictions. — Barry Ritholtz

The strange feature of partial reflection by two surfaces has forced physicists away form making absolute predictions to merely calculating the probability of an event. Quantum electrodynamics provides a method for doing this-drawing little arrows on a piece of paper. The probability of an event is represented by the area of the square of an arrow. For example, an arrow representing a probability of 0.04 (4%) has a length of 0.2. — Richard Feynman

Under the stress of the event, we felt, each man's true nature was revealed. The impression we had of each candidate's character was as direct and compelling as the color of the sky." He had had no trouble identifying which men would make good officers and which would not. "We were quite willing to declare, 'This one will never make it,' 'That fellow is rather mediocre,' or 'He will be a star.'" The problem came when he'd tested his predictions against the outcomes - how the various candidates had actually performed in officer training. His predictions were worthless. And yet, because it was the army and he had a job to do, he kept on making them; and because he was Danny, he noted that he still felt confident about them. — Michael Lewis

One of the things that I think we have learned is that we should all be very careful about making predictions about the future. — William J. Clinton

It makes no sense to seek a single best way to represent knowledge-because each particular form of expression also brings its particular limitations. For example, logic-based systems are very precise, but they make it hard to do reasoning with analogies. Similarly, statistical systems are useful for making predictions, but do not serve well to represent the reasons why those predictions are sometimes correct. — Marvin Minsky

So why study history? Unlike physics or economics, history is not a means for making accurate predictions. We study history not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable, and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we imagine. For example, studying how Europeans came to dominate Africans enables us to realise that there is nothing natural or inevitable about the racial hierarchy, and that the world might well be arranged differently. 2. — Yuval Noah Harari

Data Products are self-adapting, broadly applicable economic engines that derive their value from data and generate more data by influencing human behavior or by making inferences or predictions upon new data. — Benjamin Bengfort

The thing that people associate with expertise, authoritativeness, kind of with a capital 'A,' don't correlate very well with who's actually good at making predictions. — Nate Silver

Making predictions is like throwing a dartboard at the fixture list — Mike Parry

The brain is an organ that builds models and makes creative predictions, but its models and predictions can as easily be specious as valid. Our brains are always looking at patterns and making analogies. If correct correlations cannot be found, the brain is more than happy to accept false ones. Pseudoscience, bigotry, faith, and intolerance are often rooted in false analogy. — Jeff Hawkins

Science is not about making predictions or performing experiments. Science is about explaining. — Bill Gaede

I've ceased making predictions on things because we'll see how they turn out. — David Plouffe

Making predictions is tough. Especially for the future. — Yogi Berra

Soy milk and two sugars." Just this past week, Rachel had become convinced that how people took their coffee gave some secret insight into their characters. Were people who took their coffee black unyielding? Did people who liked their coffee with milk and no sugar have mother issues? She had a notebook behind the coffee counter in which she wrote her findings. Willa decided to keep her on her toes by making up a different request every day.
Rachel walked back to the coffee bar to write that down in her notebook. "Hmm, interesting," she said seriously, as if it made all the sense in the world, as if she'd finally figured Willa out.
"You don't believe in ghosts, but you do believe that how I take my coffee says something about my personality?"
"That's superstition. This is science. — Sarah Addison Allen

I'm not keen on making predictions. — Andrew Flintoff

Science is not, despite how it is often portrayed, about absolute truths. It is about developing an understanding of the world, making predictions, and then testing these predictions. — Brian Schmidt

My approach works not by making valid predictions but by allowing me to correct false ones. — George Soros

The game of investing is one of making better predictions about the future than other people. How are you going to do that? One way is to limit your tries to areas of competence. If you try to predict the future of everything, you attempt too much. — Charlie Munger

The greater number of the young women, who envied Anna and had long been weary of hearing her called virtuous, rejoiced at the fulfillment of their predictions, and were only waiting for a decisive turn in public opinion to fall upon her with all the weight of their scorn. They were already making ready their handfuls of mud to fling at her when the right moment arrived. — Leo Tolstoy

For a long time, I have been making many predictions, far in advance, of events since come to pass, naming the particular locality. I acknowledge all to have been accomplished through divine power and inspiration. — Nostradamus

Making predictions based on our beliefs is the best (and perhaps even the only) way to test ourselves. If objectivity is the concern for a greater truth beyond our personal circumstances, and prediction is the best way to examine how closely aligned our personal perceptions are with that greater truth, the most objective among us are those who make the most accurate predictions. — Nate Silver

You can't make money with a consensus accurate prediction — Bill Gurley

Astrologers were greatly impressed, and misled, by what they believed to be confirming evidence-so much so that they were quite unimpressed by any unfavorable evidence. Moreover, by making their interpretations and prophecies sufficiently vague they were able to explain away anything that might have been a refutation of the theory had the theory and the prophecies been more precise. In order to escape falsification they destroyed the testability of their theory. It is a typical soothsayer's trick to predict things so vaguely that the predictions can hardly fail: that they become irrefutable. — Karl Popper

To the extent that you can find ways where you're making predictions, there's no substitute for testing yourself on real-world situations that you don't know the answer to in advance. — Nate Silver

Was it - was she making a real prediction?'
Dumbledore looked mildly impressed.
'Do you know, Harry, I think she might have been,' he said thoughtfully. 'Who'd have thought it? That brings her total of real predictions up to two. I should offer her a pay raise ... — J.K. Rowling

Berkshireis in the business of making easy predictions If a deal looks too hard, the partners simply shelve it. — Charlie Munger

In making these predictions, I have had the invaluable assistance of scientists who graciously allowed me to interview them, broadcast their ideas on national radio, and even take a TV crew into their laboratories. — Michio Kaku