Quotes About Empirical basis

Though much of serious academia rejects the notion of "radicalization"—there is no empirical basis for predicting when an individual will commit acts of violence—the approach generally followed by law enforcement, whatever its flaws, follows the "bunch of guys" theory: the idea that young people join radical groups through peer pressure and in clusters.

Until the 1960s, liberals understood themselves to be devotees of a rationality that allowed individuals to question authority on the basis of empirical and historical argumentation.