Quotes About Misconception

This is hard to accept in the age of the Internet. It has been very hard for me to explain that the more data you get, the less you know what's going on, and the more iatrogenics you will cause. People are still under the illusion that "science" means more data.

Now, in addition to these traits, he defaults to thinking that what he doesn't see is not there, or what he does not understand does not exist. At the core, he tends to mistake the unknown for the nonexistent.

He defaults to thinking that what he doesn't see is not there, or what he does not understand does not exist. At the core, he tends to mistake the unknown for the nonexistent.

One of the problems I face in life is that whenever I tell people that the Gaussian bell curve is not ubiquitous in real life, only in the minds of statisticians, they require me to "prove it"—which is easy to do, as we will see in the next two chapters, yet nobody has managed to prove the opposite

I wonder why people don't realize the simple truism, that is, the fooled by randomness effect: mistaking the merely associative for the causal, that is, if rich countries are educated, immediately inferring that education makes a country rich, without even checking. Epiphenomenon

Are we so plagued with the narrative fallacy?

what is called "healthy" is generally unhealthy, just as "social" networks are antisocial, and the "knowledge"-based economy is typically ignorant.

At the core, he tends to mistake the unknown for the nonexistent.

he has no clue as to what he was talking about.

Contrary to what people might expect, I am not recommending that

confusing intensity with frequency.

Look it. Would you rather be the world's greatest lover, but have everyone think you're the world's worst lover? Or would you rather be the world's worst lover but have everyone think you're the world's greatest lover?

facts never prevent the ignorant from jerking their knees into the groin of science.

Because it is easier to believe that scythes aren't real, and that I am a liar, and that the moon is made of cheese, than it is to admit that everything you believe about the world is wrong.

What's the easiest fucking thing to take?" I asked him. "Journalism. Those journalism majors don't do anything." "O.K., I'll be a journalist.

Sometimes a phone made me think of an elephant turd. You know, all the shit you hear. A phone is a phone but what comes through it is another matter.

Oh, I didn't know that. I thought you bitches were always screaming for equal rights?

Holmberg's Mistake—the supposition that Native Americans lived in an eternal, unhistoried state—held sway in scholarly work, and from there fanned out to high school textbooks, Hollywood movies, newspaper articles, environmental campaigns, romantic adventure books, and silk-screened T-shirts. It existed in many forms and was embraced both by those who hated Indians and those who admired them.

It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the plan of creation or unity of design, etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact.

Well, now is the time to peel back the foreskin of misconception and apply the wire brush of enlightenment to this mass of sticky half-truths and lies. The truth hurts, but not as much as the consequences of willful ignorance.

I had to sit down and explain to [her friend] that AA was for quitters

It became clear when I got in my car that Persians are only really good for two things. Oil and hummus.

Kobe beef is not named after Kobe Bryant. Do not make this mistake.

We have a saying that a snake is never as long as the stick to which we liken its length.