Quotes About Skepticism

It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas...If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you … On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful ideas from the worthless ones.

For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.

If scientists can be fooled on the question of the simple interpretation of straightforward data of the sort that they are routinely obtaining from other kinds of astronomical objects, when the stakes are high, when the emotional predispositions are working, what must be the situation where the evidence is much weaker, where the will to believe is much greater, where the skeptical scientific tradition has hardly made a toehold - namely, in the area of religion?

We worry, and for good reason, about adults who still believe in Santa Clause.

Uno de los grandes mandamientos de la ciencia es: «Desconfía de los argumentos que proceden de la autoridad».

A sedução do maravilhoso embota nossas faculdades críticas.

La búsqueda de configuraciones sin análisis crítico y la ostentación de un rígido escepticismo sin la búsqueda de configuraciones son las antípodas de una ciencia incompleta. La búsqueda efectiva del saber requiere la concurrencia de ambas funciones.

There is no doubt that right-hemisphere intuitive thinking may perceive patterns and connections too difficult for the left hemisphere; but it may also detect patterns where none exist. Skeptical and critical thinking is not a hallmark of the right hemisphere. And unalloyed right-hemisphere doctrines, particularly when they are invented during new and trying circumstances, may be erroneous or paranoid.

This is one of the fallacies in the baloney detection kit, the enumeration of favorable circumstances. We

la ciencia es más que un cuerpo de conocimiento, es una manera de pensar.

Um dragão que cospe fogo pelas ventas vive na minha garagem - O Mundo assombrado pelos demônios.

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defence against betrayal.

she had wondered if any of his Christianity was true. Had it all been a cover? A way to network and look honest? Or had he truly loved Jesus, but found ways to compartmentalize the sin in his life as so many others did?

Do not be so quick to accept as truth what is only conjecture.

When you were possessed of a deceitful mind, it wasn't difficult to imagine that everyone else was the same. There was nothing the ragpicker could do about that. Not now. But if the Troll failed to do as he was told Ã¢â'¬Â¦

For despite the fact that Man was the only known Race, he still managed to find differences between himself and his brothers and sisters—differences of the coloration of their skin, of the location of their homeland, of the nature of their politics—and Man distrusted anything that was different.

Trusting people you didn't know was never a good idea.

Modern poets like Frost still want to make 'deep' statements; but they are also more sceptical of such high-sounding generalities than many of their forebears. So, rather like T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land , they gesture enigmatically to such profundities while at the same time being nervous of committing themselves to them.

The nearest one could approach to truth was to cultivate a suitably ironic sense of one's own phoniness.

In post-Nietzschean spirit, the West appears to be busily undermining its own erstwhile metaphysical foundations with an unholy mélange of practical materialism, political pragmatism, moral and cultural relativism, and philosophical skepticism.

The Wizard's First Rule: People are stupid; given proper motivation almost anyone will believe almost anything.

Third Time tricked, marks the fool.

Richard didn't trust Minister Chanboor. The man's tongue was too smooth. Truth didn't wear a tongue smooth; lies did.

First Rule: people would believe any lie, either because they wanted to believe it was true, or because they feared it was.