contact(at)onbelief.orgList of Articles
Selected Quotations
"It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything new. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.)
On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish useful ideas from worthless ones. If all ideas have equal validity then you are lost, because then it seems to me, no ideas have any validity at all. "
Carl Sagan, 'The Burden of Skepticism', Pasadena Lecture 1987, Quoted in 'Why People Believe Weird things Pseudoscience and other confusions of our time' by Michael Shermer
â€oEveryone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.â€
Daniel Patrick Moynihan (see source)
"Common sense tells us not to waste too much effort in producing impeccable solutions to problems which were not worth careful consideration in the first place.
Michael Goldstein, "Bayesian Analysis (2006) Subjective Bayesian Analysis: Principles and Practice
"We haven't made an exhaustive survey of pigs, but we are justified in saying pigs don't fly."
Taner Edis, referring to skeptics in his short his piece "In Praise of Bias"
Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful". George E.P.Box
"The story of a theory's failure often strikes readers as sad and unsatisfying. Since science thrives on self-correction, we who practice this most challenging of human arts do not share such a feeling. We may be unhappy if a favored hypothesis loses or chagrined if theories that we proposed prove inadequate. But refutation almost always contains positive lessons that overwhelm disappointment, even when [...] no new and comprehensive theory has yet filled the void. " Stephen Jay Gould , Bully for Brontosaurus (1991), "The Face of Miranda"
"In 1900, Lord Kelvin famously stated, "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement." Five years later, Albert Einstein published his paper on special relativity ... "
From the Wikipedia article: Paradigm
‘‘If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; but if we begin with doubts, and are patient with them, we shall end with certainties.’’ Sir Francis Bacon 1605 ( see source >)
"In 1987, at a news conference which I was covering for a national magazine, Vice President George H. W. Bush told me, in response to a question that I raised, "I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God." Ever since then, many have asked where my proof is that Mr. Bush actually said that. On March 31, 2006, I received documents from the Bush Presidential Library that prove that Mr. Bush made those remarks."
Rob Sherman, See the original source material in more detail here>
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires".
Susan Brownell Anthony, taken from PoitiveAtheist.org
"Positivism; the belief that there is no difference between something that exists but is not observable and something that doesn't exist at all."
Sugihara Hiroshi or Phil Gibbs September 1996. (see source))))
"The other hallmark (of moralisation) is that people feel that those who commit immoral acts deserve to be punished. Not only is it allowable to inflict pain on a person who has broken a moral rule; it is wrong not to, to "let them get away with it." People are thus untroubled in inviting divine retribution or the power of the state to harm other people they deem immoral. Bertrand Russell wrote, "The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists - that is why they invented hell."
Steven Pinker, The Moral Instinct , New York Times Magazine ((see source))
"I'll pray for you. Don't. Would you tell a rabbi that Jesus will save him? Have some respect."
Martin Willet, at mwillett.org: Debate Unlimited writing giving reasons as to why you should not e-mail him
"Brian of Nazareth: "No, no! You have to think for yourselves!" Crowd: "Yes! We have to think for ourselves!"
Monty Python "The Life of Brian" , Ripped off from Billy Beaty's home pages
"What we care about is not independent of what our genes programmed us to value"
Patricia Churchland, Speaking at the Beyond Belief II Conference at the Salk Institute 2007
" The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life"
Muhammad Ali, Boxer
"I have heard it said that in risking self-awareness, at least we know that we are awake."
Chris Jordan, Photographer
"Evolutionary explanation extends well beyond biology to re-conceptualize culture and science itself."
From Daniel C Dennett's bio page at The Edge
"The belief that God created the universe in six days is an unfounded superstition that both discredits religious faith and demeans science"
Fr Guy J. Consolmagno SJ, The Vatican astronomer (see source)
"Ideas to die for are infectious; freedom, justice, truth, communism, capitalism, catholicism, islam, .... "
Daniel C Dennett in a talk at TED in which he refers to the subordination of genetic interests to other interests.
"It is an irrelevance that you know the truth. It is merely a question of what you decide given the evidence."
NoBrainer
"The cause of suffering is ignorance, by that the Buddha did not mean stupidity. He meant that clinging to the illusion that life is static and predictable"
Wade Davis speaking at TED referring to one interpretation of the Second Noble Truth of the Buddha.
" I am ashamed to be an Agnostic... But I do not have the faith to be an Atheist."
J.C.Condero former minister
"Life is like a computer game. When you close your eyes for the final time it is game over."
Ron Gretch, former Sergeant Chef in the French Foreign Legion, who served on active duty in Bosnia. He is invoking the perspective 'evolutionary game theory' . See the video on this topic on the links page.
"Goodness is more important than greatness. Compassion is more essential than passion."
Samuel Mockbee, Humanitarian Architect (see source)
"Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box. Religion is the smile on a dog."
from Gilbert Campbell, one of the first Scots to walk around Scotland.
"I love the question that was once asked of Richard Dawkins - "why are you obsessed by God?" ;-) "
Gilbert Campbell ( as above )
"I think of philosophy as continuous with science, even part of science"
Willard Quine when talking to by Bryan Magee (see source)
".. 'The Will' is free in the sense that very often people will what the will do do. ...Freedom of 'The Will' does not mean that 'The Will' is free to will as it will, that would be nonsense and it does not mean that 'The Will' is un-caused. 'The Will' is caused and we all are prepared to recognise that the will is caused when we try to train children in such a way as to influence their behaviour or enact laws to discourage criminals, or you try to get votes, people try to sell things. All these are cases of causing people to will. But the freedom of their will remains in so far as their activity is the result of a causual chain one link of which is 'The Willing' and that 'Willing' can itself be caused and it is".
Willard Quine when talking to by Bryan Magee (see source) asking ... "do you deny the real existnece of the age old probelm about whether or not we have Free Will"
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,"
Evelyn Beatrice Hall (see source)'If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.'
attributed to Noam Chomsky
'If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.'
George Washington
Also see:
The quotations list at PositiveAthesism.org
The quotations list at at editoreric.com
"AGAINST EXCESSIVE SKEPTICISM COLLECTED QUOTES" at William J Beaty's home pages.
More generally see Wikiquote
On the Philosophy of Belief
www.onbelief.org
Scotland, 12th October 2007 and thereafter
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