“Always trust yourself and your own feelings, as opposed to arguments and discussions. If it turns out that you are wrong, then the natural growth of your inner life will eventually guide you to other insights.” IfsFeelingsTurnsGrowthNaturalTrustArgumentInsightGuidesDiscussionTrust YourselfInner Life Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
“Anne Pitkin's poems have such lyrical sweep, such a sensitive eye for the natural world as it touches the human, that reading Winter Arguments is like seeing a landscape or, better, a richly realized painting of a landscape dotted with figures. But that would leave out their music, which would be a loss. This is a wise and graceful book by a well-traveled woman who knows how to confront deep feeling and frame it to make it all the more intense.” KnowsWorldHumansWellsBookFeelingsWould BeEyeReadingNaturalLossKnow HowWiseSeeingFiguresPaintingArgumentWinterIntenseLandscapeSensitiveTraveledNatural WorldLyricalDeep Feeling Author:Rosellen Brown
“I think that the environmental movement is wisely moving away from a largely emotion-based argument for the spiritual or intrinsic value of Nature with a capital "N" and evolving toward a very hard-nosed case for the economic value of natural capital, ecosystem services, biodiversity, etc.” ThinkingHardSpiritualMovingValuesNaturalEmotionCasesEconomicMovementArgumentEnvironmentalEvolveEtcEcosystemsBiodiversityMoving AwayIntrinsic ValueEconomic Value Author:Edward Norton
“Zoocentrism is the primary fallacy of human sociobiology, for this view of human behavior rests on the argument that if the actions of "lower" animals with simple nervous systems arise as genetic products of natural selection, then human behavior should have a similar basis.” IfsShouldHumansActionNaturalSimpleAnimalViewsProductsBehaviorArgumentShould HaveBasesAriseNervousPrimariesHuman BehaviorSelectionNatural SelectionFallacyNervous System Author:Stephen Jay Gould
“The basic formulation, or bare-bones mechanics, of natural selection is a disarmingly simple argument, based on three undeniable facts (overproduction of offspring, variation, and heritability) and one syllogistic inference (natural selection, or the claim that organisms enjoying differential reproductive success will, on average, be those variants that are fortuitously better adapted to changing local environments, and that these variants will then pass their favored traits to offspring by inheritance).” FactsThreeEnjoyNaturalSimpleEnvironmentAtheismArgumentClaimsAverageBonesLocalsTraitsOrganismsMechanicSelectionInheritanceVariationAdaptedNatural SelectionOffspringInference Author:Stephen Jay Gould
“The argument from design is ultimately an appeal to miraculous causes, i.e., causes that do not, and cannot, occur in the natural course of events. This is why an explanation via design is not a legitimate alternative to scientific and other naturalistic modes of explanation. To refer to a miraculous cause is to refer to something that is inherently unknowable, and this sanctuary of ignorance explains nothing at all. However much it may soothe the imagination of the ignorant, it does nothing to satisfy the understanding of a rational person.” MayPersonsDoeCoursesCausesUnderstandingImaginationNaturalAtheismEventsDesignIgnoranceArgumentPositive AtheismIgnorantRationalAlternativesAppealsExplanationMiraculousSanctuary Book:Why Atheism? Source: Why Atheism?
“The whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so complete and crushing an argument against the intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes, in the production of all the phenomena of the universe; that, in view of the intimate relations between Man and the rest of the living world; and between the forces exerted by the latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature's great progression, from the formless to the formed from the inorganic to the organic from blind force to conscious intellect and will.” MenWorldI CanWholeUniverseForceCausesTermNaturalViewsDoubtConsciousArgumentRelationBlindProductionsExcuseIntellectOperationsIntimateCrushLatterInterventionProgressionAnalogiesNo Excuses Author:Thomas Huxley