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Pseudoscience Quotes

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Pseudoscience Quotes

“Chiropractic, which celebrated its centennial in 1995, is a curious mixture of science and pseudoscience, sense and nonsense. Much of it is based on the theory that misaligned spinal bones produce nerve interference that causes disease. Many chiropractors claim that correcting these misalignments ("subluxations") can restore health and that regular spinal adjustments are essential to maintain it.”

PainCausesProduceTheoryEssentialsDiseaseClaimsBonesCuriousTherapyInjuryNonsenseNervesMixturesAdjustmentInterferenceCorrectingPseudoscienceChiropracticCentennial
Book:Inside Chiropractic: A Patient's Guide
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“Even philosophies who have denounced pseudosciences like psychoanalysis, have condoned pseudoscientific economic theories like neoclassical microeconomics. It is far safer and easier to criticize Freud and Jung than to criticize Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, because the latter are backed by political movements whereas the former are not.”

PhilosophyPoliticalEconomicMovementTheoryEasierFormerLatterCriticizePsychoanalysisPseudoscienceMiltonJungPolitical MovementsHayekEconomic TheoryFriedrich HayekMicroeconomics
Author:Mario Bunge
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“...Which brings me to the Hubble Space Telescope's newest images. If it's wonder that you're looking for, and mystery, don't just scan the photographs. Stop and think about them. Try to imagine the scale. The Earth is just a speck of dust on one distant whirling tentacle of the Milky Way galaxy, which contains billions of stars. A 'collision' of galaxies seems unimaginably large - and yet it is something scientists long ago imagined... The imaginings of pseudoscience are feeble by comparison.”

IfsThinkingWayTryingLongSeemsEarthStarsSpaceWonderImagineMysteryEvolutionScientistPhotographBillionsScalesDustComparisonLong AgoGalaxyTelescopesCollisionSpecksPseudoscienceMilky WayTentaclesHubbleHubble Space Telescope
Author:Mark Bowden
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“Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience. Sparse and poor popularizations of science abandon ecological niches that pseudoscience promptly fills. If it were widely understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be accepted, there would be no room for pseudoscience.”

IfsDoeWould BePoorRoomsWonderUnderstoodEvidenceClaimsAcceptedAbandonSoarAdequateNicheEcologicalSense Of WonderPseudoscience
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.”

SelfAgePastPurposeChallengesSelf EsteemHabitPrejudiceFamiliarEsteemCosmosNervesCosmicFanaticismScarcityPseudoscience
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“Astrology is the sheerest hokum. This pseudoscience has been around since the day of the Chaldeans and Babylonians. It is as phony as numerology, phrenology, palmistry, alchemy, the reading of tea leaves, and the practice of divination by the entrails of a goat. No serious person will buy the notion that our lives are influenced individually by the movement of distant planets. This is the sawdust blarney of the carnival midway.”

PersonsHas BeensReadingPracticeOur LivesMovementPlanetsSeriousNotionTeaAstrologyAlchemyGoatsPhonyPseudoscienceCarnivalsMidwaySawdustNumerologySerious PersonPhrenologyTea LeavesPalmistryBlarney
Author:James J. Kilpatrick
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“I believe that part of what propels science is the thirst for wonder. It's a very powerful emotion. All children feel it. In a first grade classroom everybody feels it; in a twelfth grade classroom almost nobody feels it, or at least acknowledges it. Something happens between first and twelfth grade, and it's not just puberty. Not only do the schools and the media not teach much skepticism, there is also little encouragement of this stirring sense of wonder. Science and pseudoscience both arouse that feeling. Poor popularizations of science establish an ecological niche for pseudoscience.”

FeelsFirstsBelieveChildrenLittlesFeelingsHappensSchoolI BelievePoorPowerfulEmotionWonderTeachMediaEncouragementThings HappenAcknowledgeGradesClassroomSkepticismThirstVery PowerfulNicheEcologicalStirringPubertySense Of WonderPseudosciencePowerful Emotions
Author:Carl Sagan
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“The multiverse as a real physical construct within physics overlapping with a more mystical understanding of many possible worlds - the notion of there being a root down at the quantum level between intention and reality, between consciousness and existence - it's not a matter of trying to explain the mystery of magic away with a pat mechanism of a pseudoscience, it's just a matter of trying to ground it in a domain.”

WorldTryingRealMatterRealityUnderstandingLevelsExistenceConsciousnessMagicMysteryRootsIntentionNotionPhysicsMechanismQuantumMysticalConstructsDomainPseudoscienceMultiverseOverlapping
Author:Jon Spaihts
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“It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

ScienceDeathReligionUniverseStuffAtheismDyingHumorousAtheistWittyThriveCosmosDelusionSatisfyingSkepticismPersistAgnosticSkepticalSkepticCosmologyThere Is No GodAgnosticismAtheisticFreethinkerReassuringIf There Is A GodPseudoscienceFamous MotivationalThere Being No GodChristian AtheistAnti ReligionAnti AtheistAnti GodSubtle AtheistAstronomy And UniverseSmall CreaturesSatisfying Work
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.”

PhilosophyGodSpiritualScienceReligionSpiritualityAtheismSourceScientistProfoundMetaphysicsScience And ReligionInterfaithScience And TechnologyCompatibleImmensityPseudoscienceScience ReligionDisserviceScience Vs ReligionIntricacyGreat ScienceScience TechnologyScientist LifeProfound Spiritual
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“Economics was like psychology, a pseudoscience trying to hide that fact with intense theoretical hyperelaboration. And gross domestic product was one of those unfortunate measurement concepts, like inches or the British thermal unit, that ought to have been retired long before.”

TryingLongHas BeensFactsPsychologyProductsOughtConceptsEconomicsBritishIntenseInchesUnfortunateUnitsGrossRetiredTheoreticalMeasurementPseudoscienceGross Domestic ProductThermal
Book:Blue Mars
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“One of the reasons for its success is that science has a built-in, error-correcting machinery at its very heart. Some may consider this an overbroad characterization, but to me every time we exercise self-criticism, every time we test our ideas against the outside world, we are doing science. When we are self-indulgent and uncritical, when we confuse hopes and facts, we slide into pseudoscience and superstition.”

WorldHeartMayIdeasSelfReasonFactsExerciseBuiltCriticismTestsErrorsSuperstitionsMachinerySlidesOutside WorldCorrectingPseudoscienceCharacterizationSelf CriticismSelf Indulgent
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“Isaac Asimov's remark about the infantilism of pseudoscience is just as applicable to religion: 'Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold.' It is astonishing, moreover, how many people are unable to understand that 'X is comforting' does not imply 'X is true'.”

PeopleDoePiecesSecurityComfortingRemarksAstonishingThumbsBlanketSkirtsPseudoscienceIsaac
Book:The God Delusion
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“In the way that scepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to ignore the fact that, deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the sceptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.”

IfsWorldWayNeedsTryingHumansRealSometimesFactsFeelingsMightCultureGivenFearHuman BeingsRolesKindnessCasesIssuesAtheismFiguresConcernToolsCriticismRageTendenciesPursueMotiveTemperQuestsSuperstitionsSupporterDeludedBelittlePseudoscienceScepticismScepticConsonantsReal Feelings
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“I believe that even a smattering of such findings in modern science and mathematics is far more compelling and exciting than most of the doctrines of pseudoscience, whose practitioners were condemned as early as the fifth century B.C. by the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus as “nigh -walkers, magicians, priests of Bacchus, priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers.” But science is more intricate and subtle, reveals a much richer imiverse, and powerfully evokes our sense of wonder.”

ImportantScienceNightUniverseWonderVirtueMysteryCenturyExcitingMathematicsWinePhilosopherDoctrineBeing TrueSubtlePriestsCompellingMagicianFifthEvokeIntricateWalkersSense Of WonderPseudoscienceBacchusVatPriestesses
Author:Carl Sagan
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“It is no defense of superstition and pseudoscience to say that it brings solace and comfort to people. . . . If solace and comfort are how we judge the worth of something, then consider that tobacco brings solace and comfort to smokers; alcohol brings it to drinkers; drugs of all kinds bring it to addicts; the fall of cards and the run of horses bring it to gamblers; cruelty and violence bring it to sociopaths. Judge by solace and comfort only and there is no behavior we ought to interfere with.”

PeopleIfsKindRunningReligionFallViolenceJudgingOughtComfortDrugBehaviorHorseDefenseAlcoholCrueltyAll KindsCardsSuperstitionsInterfereAddictTobaccoSolaceSociopathDrinkersPseudoscienceSmokers
Author:Isaac Asimov
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“How have people come to be taken in by The Phenomenon of Man? We must not underestimate the size of the market for works of this kind [pseudoscience/'woo'], for philosophy-fiction. Just as compulsory primary education created a market catered for by cheap dailies and weeklies, so the spread of secondary and latterly tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought.”

PeopleMenWellsKindHas BeensPhilosophyScienceFictionTakenTasteCapacitySizePopulationSpreadEducatedPrimariesPhenomenonUnderestimatePseudoscienceCompulsoryScholarlyCompulsory EducationPrimary Education
Author:Peter Medawar
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“The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”

KindSoundCommonMediaIgnoranceProgrammingSecondsBitesCelebrationSuperstitionsDecayEvidentLowestPresentationInfluentialCommon DenominatorPseudoscienceSound BitesLowest Common DenominatorDumbing Down
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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