Quotes About Evidence

What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?

You are to be in all things regulated and governed,' said the gentleman, 'by fact.

Now, what I want is Facts.

Oh woman, God beloved in old Jerusalem! The best among us need deal lightly with thy faults, if only for the punishment thy nature will endure, in bearing heavy evidence against us, on the Day of Judgment!

Evidence and logic are tools we use to justify and flesh out our beliefs, but we are deceiving ourselves to think that they are the source of our beliefs. I will return to this idea, because it is crucial to understanding the process of belief change as well; and clearly, for our world to have a chance of surviving, a lot of beliefs are going to have to change.

Whether Jesus rose or not isn't affected by the brutality, chauvinism, or downright tediousness of his followers through the ages. It's a matter of mere history: the fact or fallacy of the resurrection is in the same class of alleged facts as the contention that the battle of Agincourt was fought in 1415, or that I caught the 0856 train this morning. And so it is subject to the same sort of historical inquiry.

So too the growth of modern science depended on the premise of the individual's ability to judge evidence and argument for himself, free from the authority— though not the argument and evidence—of tradition.

The most important evidence for the age of the maps [...] is to be found in those showing the Antarctic, especially in the maps of Mercator, Piri Re'is, and Oronteus Finaeus. All of these maps appear to show the continent at a time when there was a temperate climate there. Some geological evidence, in the form of three sedimentary cores from the bottom of the Ross Sea, has been presented to suggest that such a warm period may indeed have existed there down to about 6,000 years ago.

The Greek geographers of Alexandria, when they prepared their world map using the circumference of Eratosthenes, had in front of them source maps that had been drawn without the Eratosthenian error, that is, apparently without any discernible error at all. We shall see further evidence of this, evidence suggesting that the people who originated the maps possessed a more advanced science than that of the Greeks.

I]n most cases the errors on the Piri Re'is Map are due to mistakes in the compilation of the world map, presumably in Alexandrian times, since it appears, as we shall see, that Piri Re'is could not have put them together at all. The component maps, coming from a far greater antiquity, were far more accurate. The Piri Re'is Map appears, therefore, to be evidence of a decline of science from remote antiquity to classical times.

The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion.

Poetry is just the evidence of a life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.

...no circumstances, however dismal, will ever be considered a sufficient excuse for the admission of that last and saddest evidence of intellectual poverty, the Pun.

Scientists should always state the opinions upon which their facts are based.

The three volumes on the case compiled by Police Captain Vincent Doyle and exhaustive investigations by Captain Wilmott's lifelong friend Captain George Seeth provide further evidence. As far as is known, Doyle and Seeth never met. Neither was even aware of the other's existence. Yet, somewhat astonishingly, both came to the conclusion that Rogers poisoned Captain Wilmott as a deliberate act of retaliation.

if evidence supports established theories then that evidence will be accepted. But if evidence undermines established theories, then that evidence must be rejected.

The truth is stranger than fiction . . . and often more incriminating.

Detective Segel, the evidence shows that you experienced a penile erection when the defendant opened fire. Would you describe that as an appropriate response?

To reason with the non-Christian in a fashion purporting to be independent of God or independent of reliance upon revelation is to honor the unregenerate's notions of "evidence" and "verification" as legitimate and correct. However, for the Christian, it is Scripture that governs *every* aspect of his life, even his concept of "evidence" and the way he reasons with skeptics.

Close examination of the evidence shows that the poor were being included in private education, and only those who did not want to go to school were missing out. There was no need for public school except as a tool to undermine the church's influence in education.

He works on instinct, Agent Travers." "Does instinct include touching evidence without gloves? And looking like Charlie Manson on crack?" "Sometimes. Perhaps. I don't think one really knows.

Crank theories always violated the first rule of a scientific model: they were uncheckable.

I must follow the journalistic instinct of being skeptical of everything until I personally have proved it true.

There is no such thing as a stress-free life. No evidence has ever been presented which suggests that a stress-free life can ever be achieved. Stress can be managed, relieved and lessened, but never eliminated.