Quotes About Debate

If form follows function, as we know it does in this Universe, then consciousness will adapt to whatever form it requires in order to function. Hopefully, it will also develop its fundamental function; what that is may be debatable within many schools of thought, but it is indisputable that evolved thinking recognizes the universality of Life.

Si se le da la razón a Popper, como creo que debe hacerse, la conclusión a la cual se debe llegar es que la verdad misma es enemiga de la sociedad abierta y, en particular, de toda política democrática.

I look wildly for facts and I can only find arguments.

Don't bother to argue anything on the Internet. And I mean, ANYTHING.... The most innocuous, innocent, harmless, basic topics will be misconstrued by people trying to deconstruct things down to the sub-atomic level and entirely miss the point.... Seriously. Keep peeling the onion and you get no onion.

Medical science has been hijacked by politically correct lobbyists. Dissenters, daring to question the new orthodoxy of the group-think obsessionals, are found guilty of thought crime and sentenced to be vilified and suppressed. Group-think unoriginality oppresses and suppresses. Vaccination is just one of many areas of medicine now considered to be beyond debate.

the fact that there was no global warming

in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action.

Other medical issues which are never debated openly include chemotherapy, radiotherapy, vivisection, drug therapy for the menopause and heart surgery.)

Politics is good; when it works properly, disagreements get solved without people beating each other up. But when a regime knows its days are numbered, there's always the chance it may use its position to change the rules and make the debate it is losing irrelevant.

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.

Debating the best way to do something we shouldn't be doing in the first place is a sure way to end up in the wrong place.

Always be willing to look at both sides of the argument. Understanding the other side is the best way to strengthen your own.

There will be no end to angling controversies for there is no one best way for everyone to fish.

The best way I know of to win an argument is to start by being in the right.

Dad was always that way: who's the candidate that's best for this country? We can debate theology later - that was his famous line. I kind of feel like that's in my DNA.

[Global-warming debate] some kind of tricky campaign made up by some commercial structures to promote their business projects.

Socrates was likewise right that pissing people off is how we first, and maybe best, go about the business of provoking thought.

Argument, of course, is the whole point of history. Disagreement; my word against yours; this evidence against that. If there were such a thing as absolute truth the debate would lose its lustre. I, for one, would no longer be interested. I well remember the moment at which I discovered that history was not a matter of received opinion.

I know quite well why I became a historian.... It was because dissension was frowned upon when I was a child: 'Don't argue, Claudia,' 'Claudia, you must not answer back like that.' Argument, of course, is the whole point of history. Disagreement; my word against yours; this evidence against that. If there were such a thing as absolute truth the debate would lose its lustre. I, for one, would no longer be interested.

Statesmen may plot and plan. Learned men may calculate and conclude. Diplomats may debate and prevaricate. But chance rules the immediate affairs of humankind.

If there is one point on which all authorities on Japan are in agreement, it is that Japanese institutions, whether business or government agencies, make decisions by consensus. The Japanese, we are told, debate a proposed decision throughout the organization until there is agreement on it. And only then do they make the decision.

Reason is flawless, de jure, but reasoners are not, de facto.

As I said, relativism says there are no absolutes. Absolutely no absolutes.

In a heated debate, the novice at working with mental models will have to make an effort to identify the assumptions he is making and why. Often the beginner's efforts in a discipline are characterized by time displacement: only after the debate, does one see one's assumptions clearly and distinguish them from the "data" and reasoning upon which they are based.