Quotes About Evidence

Evidence is often particularly abundant when it comes to statements about history, yet the anointed have repeatedly been as demonstrably wrong about the past as about the present or the future—and as supremely confident.

For intellectuals in general, where the primary constraint is peer response, rather than empirical criteria, currently prevailing attitudes among peers may carry more weight than enduring principles or the weight of evidence.

Never underestimate the difficulty of changing false beliefs by facts. Henry Rosovsky

Unsafe at Any Speed is a classic of propaganda in its ability to use distracting or dismissive rhetoric to evade a need to confront opposing arguments with evidence or logic.

In short, statistical disparities are commonplace among human beings. Many historical and cultural reasons underlie the peculiar patterns observed. But the even "representation" of groups chosen as a baseline for measuring discrimination is a myth rather than an established fact. It is significant that those who have assumed that baseline have seldom, if ever, been challenged to produce evidence.

Moreover, even in the absence of accumulating personal experience, it was difficult to believe that soaring murder statistics reflected simply better record keeping, since it had always been hard to ignore a dead body.

The historic consequences of treating particular beliefs as sacred dogmas, beyond the reach of evidence or logic, should be enough to dissuade us from going down that road again—despite how exciting or emotionally satisfying political dogmas and the crusades resulting from those dogmas can be, or how convenient in sparing us the drudgery and discomfort of having to think through our own beliefs or test them against facts.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said: "You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts.

The fact that an idea sounds plausible, and is consistent with the prevailing social vision, does not exempt it from the test of empirical evidence.

There is no a priori reason to believe such claims, especially in the face of multiple evidences of declining educational quality during the period when multiculturalism and other non-academic preoccupations have taken up more and more of the curriculum.

The prevalence and power of a vision is shown, not by what its evidence or logic can prove, but precisely by its exemption from any need to provide evidence or logic--by the number of things that can be successfully asserted because they fit the vision, without having to meet the test of fitting the facts.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said: "You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts."1

Some things must be done on faith, but the most dangerous kind of faith is that which masquerades as "science.

the human potential movement, as it encourages us to be undeterred by our current life conditions, to nobly strive toward the possibilities of an abundant and flourishing life, no matter what evidence we might be experiencing to the contrary.

Why must people always assume we moderns knew more than any of the previous cultures? It simply isn't true, evidence proves otherwise.

The Bible—and human life itself—is full of evidence that religion itself can become an idol: what the sentimental call the love of God is nothing if it is short-circuited into private piety or religious self-righteousness and doesn't translate into compassion for others.

Nearly all the bodies were found in or near water. Yet it was obviously not for its healing qualities. Why? "Water washes away evidence. It makes it harder to solve the crimes," an aging investigator told me. "They know that.

But what are facts, really, except things we've already proven? There could be lots of almost-facts out there, still waiting for proof.

Cl-8-4 CD Cl-12-4

Bones never lie. But this. This is fucked up.

one of the main purposes of our assesment is to find evidence of the children using these ideas to make decisions about their writing work each day, catching them in the act [of writing].

Seto Kaiba [to Ishizu]: How do I know you didn't just make this slab a few days ago?! There's no proof it's 3,000 years old! Even carbon dating doesn't work perfectly on rocks!

Murder is murder. Everything else is just details

If he had stopped in before he was killed, then the cops would be after Yasuko something fierce.