Evidence - Quotes
There is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives.
If someone doesn`t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide that proves they should value evidence? If someone doesn`t value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic?
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth.
I should wish to see a world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than imprisoning the minds of the young in rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them through life against the shafts of impartial evidence.
Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence what so ever.
One of the biggest problems with the world today is that we have large groups of people who will accept whatever they hear on the grapevine, just because it suits their worldview - not because it is actually true or because they have evidence to support it.
It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutory pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path toward errors is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened.
The difference between science and religion is the difference between a willingness to dispassionately consider new evidence and new arguments, and a passionate unwillingness to do so.
We must find our way to a time when faith, without evidence, disgraces anyone who would claim it.
I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs.
Acceptable evidence is that which can be observed and measured in such a way that subjective opinion is minimized.