Best evidence & intellectual Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to make us rubbery and easy to shape.”

Stories Shows Seems Belief Easy Fiction Study Shapes Intellectual Evidence Argument Moved Critical Nonfiction Skeptical Shields

Author:Jonathan Gottschall

“The stricter standards and independent, often conclusive, evidence in the physical sciences cannot be generalized to intellectual activity as a whole, even though the aura of scientific processes and results is often appropriated by other intellectuals.”

Whole Process Results Activity Intellectual Standards Evidence Independent Auras Physical Science

Book:Knowledge And Decisions

Source: Knowledge And Decisions

“I think Santa Claus is, by and large, quite beneficial, for when the child is finally allowed -- or forced -- to recognize the nonexistence of Santa Claus, then the child is able to go through the vital intellectual process of reconstructing reality in light of new evidence, complete with back-forming new stories to account for past events. This prepares the child for many other disillusionments and gives her vital and well-supported experience in maintaining her grip on reality independent of the stories told to her at any given time.”

“We are blessed with a faith, which calls into action the whole intellectual man; which prescribes a reasonable service; which challenges the investigation of its evidences; and which, in the doctrine of immortality, invests the mind of man with a portion of the dignity of Divine intelligence.”

Men Mind Whole Action Challenges Christianity Divine Intellectual Evidence Dignity Blessed Doctrine Immortality Reasonable Portions Investigation

Book:Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions

Source: Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions

“Great women scholars like Jane Harrison and Gisela Richter were produced by the intellectual discipline of the masculine classical tradition, not the wishy-washy sentimentalism of clingy, all-forgiving sisterhood, from which no first-rate book has yet emerged. Every year, feminists provide more and more evidence for the old charge that women can neither think nor write.”

Thinking Writing Years Firsts Book Discipline Intellectual Evidence Tradition Forgiving Rate Feminist Scholar Masculine Jane Sisterhood Great Women Clingy

Book:Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays

Source: Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays

“There are, however, exceptions to this reliance on feelings as evidence of truth: if, for instance, your feelings lead to disbelief instead of belief, they're apt to be dismissed as some form of denial. This is not a common problem. Usually intellectualism, not feeling reality, is blamed for disbelief. But, some angel experts suggest, there may be emotional as well as intellectual barriers to belief: unwillingness to believe in angels can reflect low self-esteem.”

“The theory that the biosphere was created without evolution, a few thousand years ago, is ruled out by overwhelming scientific evidence. To claim that there are 'alternative (always better) Biblical explanations of the same data', which make creationism a reasonable alternative to our best theories of biology and physics, is appalling intellectual dishonesty.”

“The process of inner self-examination brings about a knowledge that is as rigorous and supported by evidence as anything science has to offer. At the same time, this point of view redefines faith as a knowledge that is attained not only by intellectual means, but also through the rigorous development of the emotional side of the human psyche. Such emotional knowledge is unknown to the isolated intellect and has therefore been mistakenly labeled as "irrational."”

Mean Emotional Intellectual Evidence Intellect Point Of View Irrational Inner Self

Author:Jacob Needleman

“The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political will of others; it is, through the analyses that he does in his own field, to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to shake up habitual ways of working and thinking, to dissipate conventional familiarities, to re-evaluate rules and institutions and to participate in the formation of a political will (where he has his role as citizen to play).”

“When considering the truth of a proposition, one is either engaged in an honest appraisal of the evidence and logical arguments, or one isn't. Religion is one area of our lives where people imagine that some other standard of intellectual integrity applies.”

People Religion Our Lives Imagine Honest Integrity Intellectual Standards Evidence Areas Argument Engaged Logical Imagine That Considering Propositions Appraisal Logical Arguments

Book:Letter to a Christian Nation

Source: Letter to a Christian Nation

“The core of science is not a mathematical modeling--it is intellectual honesty. It is a willingness to have our certainties about the world constrained by good evidence and good argument.”

World Honesty Intellectual Evidence Argument Core Certainty Mathematical Willingness Modeling Intellectual Honesty

Author:Sam Harris

“There is evidence for the deity of Jesus -- good, strong, historical , cumulative evidence; evidence to which an honest person can subscribe without committing intellectual suicide.”

Persons Jesus Strong Honest Intellectual Evidence Suicide Historical Deities Cumulative Honest Person

Book:Basic Christianity, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition

Source: Basic Christianity, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition

“The Fundamentalist Christians have told me that I am a slave of Satan and should have my demons expelled with an exorcism. The Fundamentalist Materialists inform me that I am a liar, charlatan, fraud and scoundrel. Aside from this minor difference, the letters are astoundingly similar. Both groups share the same crusading zeal and the same lack of humor, charity and common human decency. These intolerable cults have served to confirm me in my agnosticism by presenting further evidence to support my contention that when dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases.”

“I mean by intellectual integrity the habit of deciding vexed questions in accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where the evidence is inconclusive. This virtue, though it is underestimated by almost all adherents of any system of dogma, is to my mind of the very greatest social importance and far more likely to benefit the world than Christianity or any other system of organized beliefs.”

Source: The basic writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959

“Mad; adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech, and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that they themselves are sane.”

Source: The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Large Bold Edition

“RELIGION: A set of beliefs held as dogmas, dominating the conduct of life, going beyond or contrary to evidence, and inculcated by methods which are emotional or authoritarian, not intellectual.”

God Religion Belief Emotional Intellectual Evidence Method Contrary Dogma Dominating

Book:Uncertain Paths to Freedom: Russia and China, 1919-22

Source: Uncertain Paths to Freedom: Russia and China, 1919-22

“There was a time when intellectual meant someone who uses reason and intellect. Today, people who call themselves intellectuals are in a form of mental death spiral: they search for, and find, those index cards that support their world view, and clutch little red books like rosaries in the face of all external evidence. They are ruled by appeals to authority. Their self-image and sense of emotional well-being trumps any and all objective evidence to the contrary.”

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right.”

Heart Eye Able Understanding Answers Party Essentials Intellectual Evidence Argument Ears Finals Debate Enormous Command Ease Subtle Rejects

Book:Animal Farm and 1984

Source: Animal Farm and 1984

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