  'Th'e 'S'tatistical 'm'echanician 'i'n 'th'e 's'treet (our Th. Smiths) must
be surprised upon hearing popular versions of some of today's most discussed
paradoxes in astronomy and cosmology. In fact, rather standard reminders of the
meaning of thermal probabilities in statistical mechanics appear to answer the
horizon problem (one of the major motivations for inflation theory) and the
information paradox (related to black hole physics), at least as they are
usually presented. Still the paradoxes point to interesting gaps in our
statistical understanding of (quantum) gravitational effects.
