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Evidence Quotes

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Evidence Quotes

“If you have evidence that C1 is a cause of E, and no evidence as to whether C2 is also a cause of E, then C1 seems to be a better explanation of E than C1&C2 is, since C1 is more parsimonious. I call the version of Ockham's razor used here "the razor of silence." The better explanation of E is silent about C2; it does not deny that C2 was a cause. The problem changes if you consider two conjunctive hypotheses.”

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Author:Elliott Sober
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“Darwin repeatedly used the hypothesis of common ancestry as a platform on which to build his various ideas about testing hypotheses concerning natural selection. He also argued that adaptive similarities provide little or no evidence for common ancestry. Although this second claim needs to be fine-tuned, Darwin was right that ample evidence for common ancestry can exist even if none of the characteristics we observe were caused to evolve by natural selection.”

IfsNeedsLittlesIdeasUsedNaturalCommonFineEvidenceClaimsVariousEvolveCharacteristicsPlatformsHypothesisSelectionTestingSimilarityNatural SelectionAncestryAdaptive
Author:Elliott Sober
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“[Albert Camus] also says that nothing is true which forces exclusion. From that, you're obliged to accept contradictions if you don't want to reject certain obvious things about life, certain evidences. If you create a system, and you say 'here there is truth', in that kind of pathway [chemin], then you'll evacuate all the other pathways and you'll kill life. It's up to each individual.”

IfsWantKindCertainIndividualForceAcceptingEvidenceObviousContradictionRejectsObligedPathwaysExclusionObvious Things
Author:Catherine Camus
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“Our soldiers in another area were attacked chemically. Our soldiers - they went to the hospital as casualties because of chemical weapons, but in the area where they said the government used chemical weapons, we only had video and we only have pictures and allegations. We're not there ; our forces, our police, our institutions don't exist there. How can you talk about what happened if you don't have evidence ?”

IfsSaidGovernmentUsedForceHappenedWeaponsEvidenceAreasPoliceInstitutionsSoldierVideoHospitalsChemicalsThey SaidCasualtiesChemical WeaponsAllegations
Author:Bashar al-Assad
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“Because Al-Qaeda has been a non-state centered organisation, many of these scenarios do not exactly apply. These are not wars between states. And yet, it seems to me that we make a mistake if we accept the view that states are fighting terrorism, since we have abundant evidence for accepting the idea of state terrorism, and what is most urgent is to track and expose how state terrorism operates under the rubric of "democracy."”

IfsHas BeensIdeasWarStatesSeemsFightingViewsMistakeAcceptingDemocracyEvidenceTrackTerrorismAlsUrgentScenariosOrganisationAl QaedaFighting TerrorismRubrics
Author:Judith Butler
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“When you look at any experimental work not directly related to economics, but trying to test rational behavior in other ways, experiments have conspicuously failed to show rational behavior. Macro evidence certainly suggests deviations from rationality, but I don't want to say the rationality hypothesis is completely wrong. If you have any introspective idea or experimental idea about people's behavior, it seems to be incompatible with the really full scale rational expectations.”

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Author:Kenneth Arrow
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“If Christianity cannot present evidence that the soul is immortal, then they have nothing to offer the masses, eternity in heaven with God or hold over their heads suffering forever in hell. They need the immortality of the soul. I did my research, it's not in the Bible, so what do they do? They relied on Judaism, which has always believed in the immortality of the soul. I start checking on that and I look in the Judaica Encyclopedia and what do I find? Their remark that Judaism probably got the immortality of the soul from the Greeks, so I go back further, where it all started with Plato.”

IfsNeedsLooksSoulSufferingHeavenChristianityHellForeverOffersMassResearchEvidenceEternityImmortalityGreekImmortalPlatoJudaismRemarksAlways BelieveEncyclopedia
Author:Vincent Bugliosi
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“ISIS is the near-term threat, and that the longer - or the mid-term challenge is managing the rise of China. There's some evidence that that's the thinking of the [Donald Trump] administration. That's a perfectly reasonable approach. Well, if that's the case, then you surely want to have a united West to deal with both, and you want to have Russia alongside, but maybe not this Russia while it's busy trying to undermine your chief asset, which is a united West.”

IfsThinkingWantTryingWellsTermChallengesUnitedDealsCasesTrumpApproachEvidenceThreatWestBusyChinaRussiaChiefsAdministrationReasonableAssetsIsisRise Of China
Author:Daniel Fried
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“There needs to be a public dawning - and it is beginning to dawn on some members of the public - that how science is practiced actually makes a difference in their lives. If evidence becomes optional, if ideological assertions or beliefs are just as good as scientifically vetted evidence, then their quality of life suffers. I think that's dawning on people. There's a level of concern unlike anything I've seen.”

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Author:Rush D. Holt, Jr.
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“I don't think there is any scientific evidence about the question of whether we think only in language or not. But introspection indicates pretty clearly that we don't think in language necessarily. We also think in visual images, we think in terms of situations and events, and so on, and many times we can't even express in words what the content of our thinking is. And even if we are able to express it in words, it is a common experience to say something and then to recognize that it is not what we meant, that it is something else.”

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Author:Noam Chomsky
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“There are certain ways you have to delude yourself. Self-delusion is important, for instance in family life. You know what I mean? If you're in love with your wife you have to go in there with blind faith. You have to support everything. And with your kids, you have to believe that you're doing something that has higher purpose; even though you don't have any evidence that that's the way it's going to turn out.”

IfsKnowsWayBelieveMeanImportantSelfKidsPurposeCertainTurnsSupportWifeLove YouHigherEvidenceBlindInstanceDelusionFamily LifeBlind FaithSelf DelusionHigher Purpose
Author:Greg Graffin
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“All the evidence shows very clearly that if you are a member of a trade union you are likely to get better pay, more equal pay, better health and safety, more chance to get training, more chance to have conditions of work that help if you have caring responsibilities ... the list goes on!”

IfsHelpingShowsChancePayResponsibilityConditionsGoes OnEqualMembersTrainingEvidenceSafetyTradeUnionsCaringListsGet BetterEqual PayTrade UnionsHealth And Safety
Author:Frances O'Grady
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“But for their right to judge of the law, and the justice of the law, juries would be no protection to an accused person, even as to matters of fact; for, if the government can dictate to a jury any law whatever, in a criminal case, it can certainly dictate to them the laws of evidence.”

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Book:An Essay on the Trial by Jury
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“If we bring not the good courage of minds covetous of truth, and truth only, prepared to hear all things, and decide upon all things, according to evidence, we should do more wisely to sit down contented in ignorance, than to bestir ourselves only to reap disappointment.”

IfsShouldMindCourageIgnoranceEvidenceAll ThingsPreparedDisappointmentReapDecide UponGood Courage
Book:Course of popular lectures as delivered by Frances Wright: with three addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789. Second edition
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“Fairy tale does not deny the existence of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat...giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy; Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”

IfsWorldGivingDoeFacesJoyGriefExistencePossibilityWallSorrowEvidenceUniversalFinalsDefeatDenyTalesFairyFairy TaleGlimpseFleetingDeliverancePoignant
Author:J. R. R. Tolkien
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“Human beings act in a great variety of irrational ways, but all of them seem to be capable, if given a fair chance, of making a reasonable choice in the light of available evidence. Democratic institutions can be made to work only if all concerned do their best to impart knowledge and to encourage rationality. But today, in the world's most powerful democracy, the politicians and the propagandists prefer to make nonsense of democratic procedures by appealing almost exclusively to the ignorance and irrationality of the electors.”

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Book:Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948
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“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

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Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“The stories never said why she was wicked. It was enough to be an old woman, enough to be all alone, enough to look strange because you have no teeth. It was enough to be called a witch. If it came to that, the book never gave you the evidence of anything. It talked about "a handsome prince"... was he really, or was it just because he was a prince that people called handsome? As for "a girl who was as beautiful as the day was long"... well, which day? In midwinter it hardly ever got light! The stories don't want you to think, they just wanted you to believe what you were told.”

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Author:Terry Pratchett
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“Hope is a state of mind independent of the state of the world. If your heart's full of hope, you can be persistent when you can't be optimistic. You can keep the faith despite the evidence, knowing that only in so doing has the evidence any chance of changing. So while I'm not optimistic, I'm always very hopeful.”

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Author:William Sloane Coffin
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“Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night-- of the general state of mind which I have indulged for nearly a fortnight past; Reason having come forward and told in her own quiet way , a plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had rejected the real, and rabidly devoured the ideal;-- I pronounced judgment to this effect:-- That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life: that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed the poison as if it were nectar.”

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Book:The Complete Works Of Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, and The Professor
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“Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence what so ever.”

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Author:Sam Harris
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“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.”

IfsMenWayBelieveReasonFactsHandsTruthActingAcceptingEvidenceInstinctRefuseIntuitionMythOverwhelmingFavouriteScrutinize
Book:Proposed Roads to Freedom
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