Logic and Reason
I can tolerate people’s eccentricities for a while. I can wait while people vent about perceived injustices for hours on end. I can sit by and let some folks try to salvage their long lost credibility for a bit. But at the end of the day, sometimes you just have to look people squarely in the eyes and tell them, “I’m sorry, you’re wrong.”
Rob North
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
Christopher Hitchens
A rational person, it seems to me, judges the truth of something by comparing it to reality, viewing the evidence for each claim and logically assessing its validity
Ed Brayton
Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has.
Martin Luther
In the real world, facts are stubborn beasts. They are supremely unmoved by whether we like them or not.
Paula Kirby
Labels are a cognitive double-edged sword. We need to categorize the world in order to mentally capture it – labels help us organize our mental maps of the overwhelming complexity of things and to communicate with each other. But labels can also be mental prisons, when they substitute for a thorough, nuanced, or individualized assessment – when categorization becomes pigeon-holing.
Steven Novella
If you integrate fantasy with reality, you do not instantiate reality. If you mix cow pie with apple pie, it does not make the cow pie taste better; it makes the apple pie worse.
Mark Crislip
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them…
Thomas Jefferson
Faith is a padlock of the mind, and few keys can open it.
Jerry A. Coyne
There are nouns and adjectives and adverbs and verbs and articles and prepositions. They are strung together to form sentences and paragraphs, but somehow, though an almost magical alchemy, all that writing transmutes into content that is completely divorced from reality as I understand it. It is a tour de farce that reaches the definition of the Pauli Principle, where “It is not only not right, it is not even wrong.”
Mark Crislip
I believe strongly that how you arrive at a conclusion is just as important as the conclusion itself.
PZ Myers
Your confidence in a proposition should be proportional to the strength of the evidence supporting it.
Jerry A. Coyne
The world has changed. We don’t live anything like our ancestors. We don’t work like them, talk like them, think like them, travel like them, or fight like them. Why on earth would we want to eat like them.
Rob Hart
We find your argument clear only in the sense that we can see right through it.
Jeffrey D. Wheelhouse
It’s a mistake to impose a purpose on a consequence.
PZ Myers
Imagine a world in which we are all enlightened by objective truths rather than offended by them.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Slot machines are a method for reducing the number of nickels you have.
Phil Plait
When you make an extraordinary claim that goes against all experience, then the evidence has to be truly extraordinary in order to even qualify as evidence.
Larry Moran
The author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others he has taken great pains to deceive himself.
Peter Medawar
When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong.
Richard Dawkins
We wish to find the truth, no matter where it lies. But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact.
Carl Sagan
You will also find that for just about every advocacy group, one of the primary hurdles they face is how wrong public knowledge is about their issue.
Steven Novella
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.
G. K. Chesterton
The beauty of mediocrity is that anything can make you better.
Caulfield
He has the ability to convince himself that whatever he is saying at any given moment is true, or sort of true, or at least ought to be true.
Tony Schwartz
It’s not a lie if you simply don‘t make any attempt to find out if you are wrong.
Mark Crislip
People define themselves by criticizing other things. And I think that’s wrong.
Jim Gaffigan
Which is more likely? That the universe was designed just for us, or that we see the universe as having been designed just for us?
Michael Shermer
Even people who we otherwise dislike, for whatever reasons, may make some amazing statements of wisdom.
Ethan Siegel
Someone without ideological skin in the game would fairly assess all the data, acknowledge uncertainty and complexity, but arrive at the fairest conclusion. Motivated reasoning exploits uncertainty and complexity to deny the reality which is causing cognitive dissonance brought about by a conflict between reality and ideology.
Steven Novella
You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views.
The Doctor
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.
Bertrand Russell
Perhaps even more discreditable is the practice of asserting as “facts” matters which have not been proved, or using as ”evidence” something that is the product of illogical thinking and the drawing of an invalid conclusion.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Being able to state another's position correctly even when you don't agree with it is a wonderful learning tool.
protomyth
People are not moved by fact or reason, but rather skillful manipulation of emotion.
Bill David
Usually when amateurs disagree with the experts it is based on the ignorance and naivete of the amateurs. When confronted with expert opinion, the real crank will then claim a conspiracy. They disagree with me because there is a vast conspiracy to trick the public about this issue. Or they will simply assume that the experts collectively are closed-minded, and lack their brilliant insight. The explanation is usually far simpler. If you disagree with the experts the chances are overwhelming you just don’t know what you are talking about.
Steven Novella
I try to live my life by a very simple rule: We should not take seriously anything someone says about science if they also believe that prayer is a serious public policy in response to a drought.
Ed Brayton
Just remember: friends don’t let friends watch the History Channel.
PZ Myers
The primary cause of belief in nonsense is narrative or tribal thinking, which is only facilitated by scientific illiteracy and lack of critical thinking skills.
Steven Novella
Increasingly in modern society, with perpetual access to the internet, lack of information is far less of a problem than misleading or incorrect information.
Steven Novella
Believing is seeing – how we perceive our senses is massive influenced by our beliefs and assumptions
Steven Novella
I don’t accept the premise and am not interested in discussing it with you.
Popehat
It’s always important to remember that humans generally are predictable and easy to manipulate (at least statistically). There are, in fact, entire industries dedicated to manipulating people’s emotional reactions (such as advertising and politics).
Steven Novella
As long as pimps, priests, and politicians know what a female body is, I do too. The moment they’re confused—the moment they hesitate, the moment they qualify, the moment they adopt the restraint and caution you demand from the targets of their abuse— then I’ll happily open myself up to ambiguity.
Jonah Mix
[D]efending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.
Randall Monroe (XKCD)
…both nuance and uncertainty seem to me to be things that a lot of people are very uncomfortable with, too many want simplicity and certainty. I think that teaching that nuance and uncertainty are part of life, thus not to be feared, is as essential as teaching analytic thinking, understanding of our brain's inherent tendency to bias, and scepticism in general.
Steven Novella
Where there is smoke there may be fire, but there also may be someone blowing a lot of smoke.
Steven Novella
The fact that a conflict has many sides does not imply that every side has merit.
Captain Picard
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
Sherlock Holmes
[I]n many ways nonsense is a more effective organizing tool than the truth. Anyone can believe in the truth. To believe in nonsense is an unforgeable demonstration of loyalty. It serves as a political uniform. And if you have a uniform, you have an army.
Mencius Moldbug
Those who believe without reason cannot be convinced by reason.
James Randi
When things get hard to believe…believe harder.
Jesus and Mo
In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
Not George Orwell
The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.
George Orwell
The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get 22.
Nick Charles
It has frequently been noticed that the surest long-term result of brainwashing is a peculiar kind of cynicism—an absolute refusal to believe in the truth of anything, no matter how well this truth may be established.
Hannah Arendt
Don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you can't be misunderstood.
William Howard Taft
It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
Jonathan Swift
Cunningham’s Law:
The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question, but to post the wrong answer, because people are more interested in criticizing you than helping you.
@G_S_Bhogal on Twitter
Having a PhD doesn’t make someone right, it often just makes them more skilled at being wrong.
@G_S_Bhogal on Twitter
Those who are determined to be ‘offended’ will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt.
Christopher Hitchens
[This] of course is the advantage of being a pessimist; a pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.
Nero Wolfe
