Quotes About Theories

You can and should use logic and reason all you want. But it would be a great mistake to ignore the stray bit of data that doesn't fit into your preconceived theories, that may even confound everything you thought you were sure of.

Science works, of course, but from an aesthetic point of view, was it really a great improvement over mythology? Why do we insist that theories work, when they might just as well sit around and look pretty? I couldn't help observing that for every advance in science...some perfectly competent goddess or demiurge is put out of work, a hypothesized spirit dies, or a living thing surrenders its autonomy.

She'd heard theories in her time regarding the number-one enemy of everything, ranging from Osama bin Laden to premarital sex. The dust theory she liked.

The history of knowledge conventionally focuses on breakthrough ideas and conceptual leaps. But the blind spots on the map, the dark continents of error and prejudice, carry their own mystery as well. How could so many intelligent people be so grievously wrong for such an extended period of time? How could they ignore so much overwhelming evidence that contradicted their most basic theories? These questions, too, deserve their own discipline—the sociology of error.

Everyone has a theory of human nature. Everyone has to anticipate the behavior of others, and that means we all need theories about what makes people tick.

A society is an organic system that develops spontaneously, governed by myriad interactions and adjustments that no human mind can pretend to understand. Just because we cannot capture its workings in verbal propositions does not mean it should be scrapped and reinvented according to the fashionable theories of the day. Such ham-fisted tinkering will only lead to unintended consequences, culminating in violent chaos.

I love conspiracy theories. I used to just live on it. You know it's all hype and garbage, but you're still really paranoid afterwards. It's fun entertainment.

The moral of the story? Beware of intellectuals who make a monotheism out of their theories of motivation.

To say it again: it is the greatest temptation of the rational faculty to glorify its own capacity and its own productions and to claim that in the face of its theories nothing transcendent or outside its domain need exist.

This kind of theorizing is particularly attractive to people who are smart but lazy. Cynicism serves as an aid, too, as does arrogance. The new adherents will be taught that mastering such a game constitutes education, and will learn to criticize alternative theories, different methods, and increasingly, even the idea of fact itself.

Después de todo, nuestras grandes teorías racionalistas -fascistas, pongamos por caso, o comunistas- han demostrado su inutilidad esencial en el espacio de unas pocas generaciones, a pesar de su naturaleza intelectualmente atractiva.

To say it again: it is the greatest temptation of the rational faculty to glorify its own capacity and its own productions and to claim that in the face of its theories nothing transcendent or outside its domain need exist. This means that all important facts have been discovered. This means that nothing important remains unknown. But most importantly, it means denial of the necessity for courageous individual confrontation with Being.

Beware of intellectuals who make monotheism out of their theories of motivation.

Science is based on the possibility of objectivity, on the possibility of different people checking out for themselves the observations made by others. Without that possibility, there is no empirical principle capable of deciding between different arguments and theories.

Other theories regarding this verse have been put forward by those who believe God will give his consent to angels that they may finally freely mix with people.

Does the external sign receive from God a peculiar super natural power enabling it physically to produce sanctify ing grace in the soul, either by a quality inherent in the rite, as Billuart and the Thomists contended, or by an external stimulation of the potentia obedientialis in the soul, as Suarez held?

A new ignorance is on the horizon, an ignorance borne not of a lack of knowledge but of too much knowledge, too much data, too many theories, too little time.

If anyone imagines that scientists are dispassionate and impartial people, discussing theories and ideas unemotionally in the cool clear light of reason, they have been seriously misled.

It is so easy for us theorists who build wonderful castles, beautiful ideas. Sometimes, it is remarkable, sometimes these beautiful ideas prove to be close to what the observations tell us. But often and also they turn out to be wrong.

As we shall see, theories like those of Divine Right and Popular Sovereignty, which pass for opposites, stem in reality from the same trunk, the idea of sovereignty—the idea, that is, that somewhere there is a right to which all other rights must yield. It is not hard to discover behind this juridical concept a metaphysical one.

When religions disagree about just creation, there is nothing to do but argue. When two scientists disagree about evolution, they confer with colleagues, develop theories, collect evidence, and arrive at a more complete understanding. Every question leads to new answers, new discoveries, and new smarter questions. The science of evolution is as expansive as nature itself.

I'll tell you what makes me feel worthwhile: organizing and solving other people's problems. It makes me feel good to go to Mexico City and figure out theories on how you can reorganize and reduce crime. To me, it's one of the more fulfilling ways to spend a day.

Many writers upon the science of political economy have declared that it is the duty of a nation first to encourage the creation of wealth; and second, to direct and control its distribution. All such theories are delusive.

It is not my fault that certain so-called bohemian elements have found in my writings something to hang their peculiar beatnik theories on.