“You can't. Do you hear me? You think you've figured something out? You run over here so pleased with yourself because you changed your mind. Now you're certain. You're so... sloppy. You don't know anything. The book, the math, the dates, the writing, all that stuff you decided with your buddies, it's just evidence. It doesn't finish the job. It doesn't prove anything.” ThinkingKnowsWritingMindBookRunningJobsCertainStuffChangedProveEvidenceDecidedLogicMathCertaintyUncertaintyReasoningBuddyOntologySloppyYou Changed Author:David Auburn
“Okay, I'm not in the news business, and I'm not going to tell anyone how to do their job. However, it'd be good to have news reporting that I could trust again, and there's evidence that fact-checking is an idea whose time has come.” IdeasFactsJobsNewsEvidenceOkayBe GoodNews ReportingTrusting Again Author:Craig Newmark
“My message is that the counterclaim - which is that if wages go up, employment will go down - is a scam. It's a con job. It's an intimidation tactic. There is absolutely no evidence anywhere that it's true. On the contrary, where you find high wages you usually find low unemployment.” IfsJobsMessagesLowsEvidenceContraryEmploymentUnemploymentWagesTacticsIntimidationScams Author:Nick Hanauer
“A free press is one where it's okay to state the conclusion you're led to by the evidence. One reason I'm in hot water is because my colleagues and I at NOW didn't play by the conventional rules of Beltway journalism. Those rules divide the world into Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, and allow journalists to pretend they have done their job if instead of reporting the truth behind the news, they merely give each side an opportunity to spin the news.” IfsWorldGivingStatesReasonDonePlayJobsOpportunitySidesWaterBehindsRepublicanTruth IsNewsEvidenceOkayHotPressesDemocratConclusionJournalismJournalistDividesConventionalColleaguesFree PressHot Water Author:Bill Moyers
“The first job of the historian and of the journalist is to find facts. Not the only job, perhaps not the most important, but the first. Facts are the cobblestones from which we build roads of analysis, mosaic tiles that we fit together to compose pictures of past and present. There will be disagreement about where the road leads and what reality or truth is revealed by the mosaic picture. The facts themselves must be checked against all the available evidence. But some are round and hard--and the most powerful leaders in the world can trip over them. So can writers, dissidents and saints.” WorldFirstsImportantHardFactsRealityTogetherJobsPastPowerfulLeaderFitTruth IsEvidenceRoundsSaintAvailableJournalistAnalysisMost PowerfulHistorianDisagreementPast And PresentDissidentsMosaicsPowerful LeadersTilesCobblestone Author:Timothy Garton Ash
“Bertrand Russell used to employ the method of "evidence against interest"; in other words of deciding that a critique of capital punishment, say, carried more weight if it came from a prison governor. (My friend John O'Sullivan puts it like this: If the pope says he believes in God, he's only doing his job; if he says he doesn't believe in God, he may be on to something.)” IfsBelieveMayJobsUsedInterestEvidenceMy FriendsArgumentWeightMethodPrisonPunishmentBelieve In GodGovernorsPopeCritiqueCapital PunishmentInterest In Others Author:Christopher Hitchens