# Quote — John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy

> A tendency to drastically underestimate the frequency of coincidences is a prime characteristic of innumerates, who generally accord great significance to correspondences of all sorts while attributing too little significance to quite conclusive but less flashy statistical evidence.

- Author: [John Allen Paulos](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos.md)
- Book: [Innumeracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos/innumeracy.md)
- Page: 35
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Allen_Paulos#Innumeracy:_Mathematical_Illiteracy_and_its_Consequences_(1988)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos/innumeracy/a-tendency-to-drastically

## More from this book

> There’s always enough random success to justify almost anything to someone who wants to believe.

p. 44 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos/innumeracy/theres-always-enough.md)

> The moral, again, is that some unlikely event is likely to occur, whereas it’s much less likely that a particular one will...The paradoxical conclusion is that it would be very unlikely for unlikely events not to occur. If you don’t specify a predicted event precisely, there are an indeterminate number of ways for an event of that general kind to take place.

p. 37 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos/innumeracy/the-moral-again.md)

> Correlation and causation are two quite different words, and the innumerate are more prone to mistake them than most.

p. 159 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos/innumeracy/correlation-and-causation.md)