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Quote by Philip Plait

“As a matter of fact, sometimes it pays not to nitpick; when you do, pseudoscience supporters will simply throw more facts and figures at you, hoping either to dazzle you with their database of knowledge or to confuse you beyond hope of reaching any rational conclusion.”

Quote by Philip Plait

Book:Bad Astronomy
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Bad Astronomy

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Philip Plait

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“There are times...when we are in the midst of life-moments of confrontation with birth or death, or moments of beauty when nature or love is fully revealed, or moments of terrible loneliness-times when a holy and awesome awareness comes upon us. It may come as deep inner stillness or as a rush of overflowing emotion. It may seem to come from beyond us, without any provocation, or from within us, evoked by music or by a sleeping child. If we open our hearts at such moments, creation reveals itself to us in all it's unity and fullness. And when we return from such a moment of awareness, our hearts long to find some way to capture it in words forever, so that we can remain faithful to it's higher truth. ...When my people search for a name to give to the truth we feel at those moments, we call it God, and when we capture that understanding in timeless poetry, we call it praying.”

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“There’s a simple reason why people don’t get involved with reason, logic and mathematics. They find these extremely difficult. There’s a simple reason why people get involved with faith, prayer, mysticism, meditation and mindfulness: they’re easy! Anyone can do them.”

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Book:One Right Answer, Infinite Wrong Answers: Why Humanity Is Addicted to Being Wrong
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“How would reality calculate the non-simplest answer without first calculating the simplest answer. Having calculated the simplest answer why would it then dismiss it? What would reality’s reason be for dismissing the simplest answer? No such reason is possible or conceivable. How would reality go about calculating the non-simplest answer, given that there are infinite of them? It is literally impossible for reality to calculate and implement anything other than the simplest answer. That is 100% guaranteed, and you are utterly irrational and illogical if you contend otherwise.”

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Book:One Right Answer, Infinite Wrong Answers: Why Humanity Is Addicted to Being Wrong
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“We judge the street corner hustler or working-class criminal - from East Glasgow to East London - but we see a job as an investment banker, even in firms that launder the profits of drug cartels, fund terrorism, aid the global flow of arms, fuel war, oil spills, land grabs and generally fuck up the planet, as a perfectly legitimate, even aspirational occupation.”

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Book:Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire
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“The sooner Harkness stopped walking, the sooner he could stop walking. That was the simple truth. That was logic. But something went deeper, a truer, more frightening logic. Harkness was a part of the group that Garraty was a part of, a segment of his subclan. Part of a magic circle that Garraty belonged to. And if one part of that circle could be broken, any part of it could be broken.”

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Book:The Long Walk
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