Quotes About Evidence

the American reader cannot bear a surprise. He knows that this is the greatest country on earth…and evidence to the contrary is not admissible. That means no inconvenient facts, no new information. If you really want the reader's attention, you must flatter him. Make his prejudices your own. Tell him things he already knows. He will love your soundness.

It was as if she were accumulating evidence that she had friends like other people.

Letters could lie all right, but they made the lie permanent. They lay as evidence against you: they made you meaner than the spoken word.

For more than half a century, [...] American archaeology was so riddled with pre-formed opinions about how the past should look, and about the orderly, linear way in which civilizations should evolve, that it repeatedly missed, sidelined, and downright ignored evidence for any human presence at all prior to Clovis--until, at any rate, the mass of that evidence became so overwhelming that it took the existing paradigm by storm.

A dominant individual, with a prestigious position, can delay the progress of knowledge for decades but ultimately cannot stop the buildup of contrary evidence and opinions that will lead to a new paradigm.

We wouldn't expect to gather crucial information about modern cultures from their knives, forks, hammers, and screwdrivers, so why should we suddenly set different standards when we try to understand the ancient world?

the evidence suggested that the Incas had often functioned as the restorers of these structures rather than their original builders.

failure of logic in which absence of evidence, which was one thing, was in fact being treated as evidence of absence – which was quite another.

Archaeology is too much constrained by a rigid reference frame of what is possible and what is not, and tends to ignore, sidestep, or ridicule evidence that challenged that reference frame.

as so often in science, statements touted as facts turn out to be opinions contradicted by other opinions that are also touted as facts.

You said you had enough evidence to convict Jonathan Sands of money laundering on your own." "That's correct." "I'd like to see that evidence." "I'd like a chocolate chip cookie without the chips." "Mr. Cage—

A criminal case is an assemblage of facts and details in an order that presents a story to a jury. Some pieces of the puzzle are magnified and others are diminished. In some cases, pieces are hidden. Or, as in the case of Alan Dawson, tampered with. Meg

Why did God even bother to create minds that naturally gauge their level of confidence in a belief on the evidence and arguments for and against it if he's only pleased with minds that can make themselves more certain than the evidence and arguments for it warrant? I just don't get it!

Genesis 1 and the scientific evidence. The literary framework interpretation can easily be reconciled with any contemporary scientific theory of origin one chooses to embrace. Yet at the same time, reconciliation is not necessary. Genesis 1 has no bearing on science, for it is strictly interested in theology, not science. Responding

According to the evidence available, the military did not keep a single ledger listing and locating all Confederate and Union graves on and around the Gettysburg battlefield.

Right. Isn't that how science works?" Redwing grinned. "If you don't understand, do an experiment.

Still, he reminded himself, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

No matter how often or deeply I thought about the struggled past or the sorrow and promise of the present, I couldn't make that leap of confidence or trust or faith into the future. There was something missing: some calculation, some piece of evidence or parallax view of my life that would make it all clear to me, I was sure, but I didn't know what it was.

Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience.

In 1995, we had evidence of the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden being in the Philippines, living in the Philippines. We had evidence of front organizations set up in the Philippines. And we uncovered evidence about, which would help the U.S. with - about the perpetuators of the World Trade Center bombing.

There is no direct evidence that nuclear weapons prevented a world war. Conversely, it is known that they nearly caused one.

Far from the stereotype that psychodynamic treatments are appropriate only for the 'worried well,' a growing body of evidence points to their efficacy in dealing with the most pressing mental health problems of our time.

We live in an epoch where rational reasoning associated with evidence isn't universally accepted and is, in fact, in jeopardy. That worries me a lot.

There's definitely evidence that capitalism at its most ruthless rewards psychopathic behavior. When you look at the worst corners of the American health insurance industry or the sub-prime banking market, it really feels like the more psychopathically someone behaves, the more it's rewarded.