Littlewood's Law of Miracles

Littlewood's Law of Miracles is an observation made by the mathematician J. E. Littlewood. Littlewood stated that most people would regard an even with a one-in-a-million probability of happening by chance as highly significant, to the point of being considered a candidate for being condered a miracle, and then observed that events with a one in a million probability of occuring by chance will actually occur roughly once a month to the average individual, based on eight hour days filled with insignificant events occuring at the rate of approximately one per second. Thus, according to this reasoning, seemingly miraculous events are actually commonplace.

See also

\n* coincidence\n* contingency\n* confirmation bias