Quotes About Skepticism

I could no longer reconcile my faith in God with the state of the world that I saw all around me.

Getting help from a guy like you is like hiring a pyromaniac to fix the oil-burner.

as afirmações dos cínicos parecem sempre mais plausíveis do que as dos optimistas incorrigíveis.

Maybe Shooter was a writer. He fulfilled both of the main requirements: he told a tale you wanted to hear to the end, even if you had a pretty good idea what the end was going to be, and he was so full of shit he squeaked.

The survival response of popular culture is cynicism—"just lower your expectations of life to the point that you aren't disappointed by anyone or anything.

Where Americans are the British never fully trusted the government and used skepticism to keep officials at bay, Germans seemed to embrace their leaders with an unfettered devotion.

Lord loves a workin' man; don't trust whitey

I guess I wouldn't believe in anything anymore if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.

Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us.

The modern world demands that we all think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally; that we think from a different angle, with a different set of muscles, with a different set of expectations; that we think with neither fear nor favor, with neither blind optimism nor sour skepticism. That we think like—ahem—a Freak.

We'd like to bury the idea that there's a right way and a wrong way, a smart way and a foolish way, a red way and a blue way. The modern world demands that we all think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally; that we think from a different angle, with a different set of muscles, with a different set of expectations; that we think with neither fear nor favor, with neither blind optimism nor sour skepticism. That we think like—ahem—a Freak.

To Borody and a small band of like-minded brethren who believe in the power of poop, we are standing at the threshold of a new era in medicine. Borody sees the benefits of fecal therapy as "equivalent to the discovery of antibiotics." But first, there is much skepticism to overcome.

That we think with neither fear nor favor, with neither blind optimism nor sour skepticism. That we think like—ahem—a Freak.

They may accuse you of consorting with witches or communists or even economists.

Anyway, this is just the latest example of why I never trust statistics I get from people in the field of medicine, ever.

Particular gift is the ability to ask such questions. For instance: If drug dealers make so much money, why do they still live with their mothers? Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What really caused crime rates to plunge during the past decade? Do real-estate agents have their clients' best interests at heart? Why do black parents give their children names that may hurt their career prospects? Do schoolteachers cheat to meet high-stakes testing.

Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it. —André Gide

given sufficient ignorance, one can doubt evolution....

It Begins with skepticism. The history of human folly, and our own susceptibility to illusions and fallacies, tell us that men and women are fallible.

The culture of science is based on the opposite belief. Its signature practices, including open debate, peer review, and double-blind methods, are designed to circumvent the sins to which scientists, being human, are vulnerable. As Richard Feynman put it, the first principle of science is "that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.

Though these developments were sometimes linked to the word progress, the usage was ironic: "progress" unguided by humanism is not progress.

Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure. —George Carlin

As Thomas Macaulay reflected in 1830, "We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all before us, and with just as much apparent reason. . . . On what principle is it, that when we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?

Betteridge's Law of Headlines: Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered with the word no.