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Theory Quotes

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Theory Quotes

“It is difficult even to attach a precise meaning to the term "scientific truth." So different is the meaning of the word "truth" according to whether we are dealing with a fact of experience, a mathematical proposition or a scientific theory. "Religious truth" conveys nothing clear to me at all.”

“Evolution is a theory in a special philosophical sense of science, but in terms of ordinary laymen's use of language, it's a fact, .. Evolution is a fact in the same sense that it's a fact that the Earth is round and not flat, [that] the Earth goes round the Sun. Both those are also theories, but they're theories that have never been disproved and never will be disproved.”

“The Theatre of the Absurd has renounced arguing about the absurdity of the human condition; it merely presents it in being - that is, in terms of concrete stage images. This is the difference between the approach of the philosopher and that of the poet; the difference, to take an example from another sphere, between the idea of God in the works of Thomas Aquinas or Spinoza and the intuition of God in those of St. John of the Cross or Meister Eckhart - the difference between theory and experience.”

“We shall see that the mathematical treatment of the subject [of electricity] has been greatly developed by writers who express themselves in terms of the 'Two Fluids' theory. Their results, however, have been deduced entirely from data which can be proved by experiment, and which must therefore be true, whether we adopt the theory of two fluids or not. The experimental verification of the mathematical results therefore is no evidence for or against the peculiar doctrines of this theory.”

“Scientific realism in classical (i.e. pre-quantum) physics has remained compatible with the naive realism of everyday thinking on the whole; whereas it has proven impossible to find any consistent way to visualize the world underlying quantum theory in terms of our pictures in the everyday world. The general conclusion is that in quantum theory naive realism, although necessary at the level of observations, fails at the microscopic level.”

“Radical militant feminist believes that women of color and Black women in particular have written the cutting edge theory and really were the individuals who exploded feminist theory into the directions that has made it more powerful. So I see us as the leaders not just of Black people and Black women in terms of feminism but in terms of the movement as a whole.”

“You want people to think. You want people to be emotionally moved. And there's a theory behind that in terms of storytelling. It has been around for thousands of years. And that's where something like live theater or a live performance is something that is very valuable because you get instant feedback from your audience and you kind of know the things that work and the things that don't work.”

“In terms of the game theory, we might say the universe is so constituted as to maximize play. The best games are not those in which all goes smoothly and steadily toward a certain conclusion, but those in which the outcome is always in doubt. Similarly, the geometry of life is designed to keep us at the point of maximum tension between certainty and uncertainty, order and chaos. Every important call is a close one. We survive and evolve by the skin of our teeth. We really wouldn't want it any other way.”

“If Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth (which, moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have never denied), it is based nevertheless on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity. Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.”

“Naturally my stories are about women - I'm a woman. I don't know what the term is for men who write mostly about men. I'm not always sure what is meant by "feminist." In the beginning I used to say, well, of course I'm a feminist. But if it means that I follow a kind of feminist theory, or know anything about it, then I'm not. I think I'm a feminist as far as thinking that the experience of women is important. That is really the basis of feminism.”

“You know, in America, Christian fundamentalism vs. science. You know, be it teaching Darwinian evolutionary theory or stem cell res- You know, the whole thing, and then the issue of women being educated in Middle Eastern - I mean, it just seems so contemporary. In terms of spirituality, it's interesting because I actually think (her character in Agora) Hypatia is very spiritual.”

“The action of the child inventing a new game with his playmates; Einstein formulating a theory of relativity; the housewife devising a new sauce for the meat, a young author writing his first novel; all of these are in terms of definition, Creative, and there is no attempt to set them in some order of more or less Creative.”

“When consequentialist theories are developed in terms of an equally shallow psychology of the good - such as a crude form of hedonism - the results can sometimes strike sensible people as revolting and inhuman. People can be reduced to simple repositories of positive or negative sensory states, and their humanity is lost sight of entirely.”

“"Methodological naturalism" and "metaphysical naturalism" are terms that often surface in the continuing battle between evolutionary biology and creationism/intelligent design. The methodological thesis says that scientific theories shouldn't postulate supernatural entities; the metaphysical thesis says that no such entities exist. In this debate, God is the supernatural entity at issue; the question isn't whether science gets to talk about mathematical entities if Platonism is correct.”

“My fourth mother, my godmother, she passed away a couple years ago - her name was Gwen. She was the theater director over at the gym where I grew up and learned about all those awesome things I told you about already. She was the one who taught me terms like "upstage" and "downstage," all those technical things about the art of what I do - how to breathe what I see, how to move. They were all her tactics, not anything learned or given to me through a theory, but rather by her natural abilities.”

“This is a derivative, if you will, of Cloward-Piven [theory]. "[Stephen] Lerner's plan is to organize a mass, coordinated 'strike' on mortgage, student loan, and local government debt payments - thus bringing the banks to the edge of insolvency and forcing them to renegotiate the terms of the loans.”

“My primary early interest was in marketing and my aim was to improve its theories, methods and tools. Early on I pressed companies to adopt a consumer orientation and to be in the value creation business. I didn't pay much attention to the social responsibilities of business until later. Now I am pressing companies to address the triple bottom line: people, the planet, and profits. I found that companies were too much into short term profit maximization and they needed to invest more in sustainability thinking.”