Quotes About Evidence

The Operative tried to implement the Purusey breathing technique, which has been proven effective at fooling polygraphs. There is no conclusive evidence as to whether it is effective at masking the internal lie detectors of fifteen-year-old boys.

The pursuit of scientific knowledge is a symphony of observation, experimentation, and the harmonious dance of imagination and evidence.

They knew that it was not their faith that validated Christ's resurrection, as many of today's modern theologians teach and preach, but that it was his physical resurrection that validated their faith.

The mere fact that a belief is unpopular at present (or at some other time) is interesting from a sociological point of view but evidentially irrelevant.

De jure objections are arguments of claims to the effect that Christian belief, whether or not true, is at any rate unjustifiable, or rationally unjustified, or irrational, or not intellectually respectable, or contrary to sound morality, or without sufficient evidence, or in some other way rationally unacceptable, not up to snuff from an intellectual point of view.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

The sensus divinitatis is a belief-producing faculty (or power, or mechanism) that under the right conditions produces belief that isn't evidentially based on other beliefs.

There seem to be two strands to this notion of justification. On the one hand, justification seems to have something to do with evidence: a belief (or the believer) is unjustified if there isn't any evidence, or enough evidence, for that belief. On the other hand, justification seems to have something to do with duty, or obligation, or moral rightness.

Accordingly, criteria for proper basicality must be reached from below rather than above; they should not be presented ex cathedra but argued to and tested by a relevant set of examples.

If you have evidence for every proposition you believe, then you will believe infinitely many propositions. So presumably some propositions can properly be believed and accepted without evidence. Well, why not belief in God? Why is it not entirely acceptable, desirable, right, proper, and rational to accept belief in God without any argument or evidence?

Seeing is believing

Fut-ce le fruit de mon imagination? Il me sembla voir passer sur le visage de notre voisin une expression que j'aurais pu traduire en ces termes: "Pourquoi te donnes-tu tant de mal? J'ai gagné, tu ne peux pas ne pas le savoir. Le simple fait que j'assiège chaque jour ton salon pendant deux heures n'en est-il pas la preuve? Si brillants que soient tes discours, tu ne pourras rien contre cette évidence: je suis chez toi et je t'emmerde.

The most powerful forces in economics are not numbers or facts. They are prejudices and preferences. No amount of evidence will ever change the degree to which many of the rich and powerful prefer themselves to be richer and more powerful and others poorer and weaker.

The weaker the data available upon which to base one's conclusion, the greater the precision which should be quoted in order to give the data authenticity.

And yet you see the weakness of external evidence-and outward miracles; they were not sufficient to make true believers, or to make the Israelites believe that Jesus was their promised Messiah.

While admiring the pleasing evidence of wealth, we become complicit in - or, at the very least, recognize the extent to which we, too, are beneficiaries of - an economic system we routinely deplore.

Scientists have argued that research is good for health, wealth, and society, and the government has trusted them on that.

There's not a lot of pictorial evidence from the Highlands, because only the very wealthy had their portraits painted - but there is one well-known painting of the two sons of the Duke of Argyll, wearing tartan.

Throughout our courtship, Kenny told me that he had proof that Saddam Hussein was a threat because he possessed weapons of mass destruction. I told him, 'You had me at weapons.'

I don't think that they have many of the scientists who were involved in the weapons program to talk to at this time, and there were thousands of people, engineers and scientists, they know where the weapons are.

There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering weapons for the purpose of using them. And adding additional information is like adding a foot to Mount Everest.

The French had an obvious financial interest in Iraq. That's been documented. They were involved financially in Iraq and in some cases, I think with weapons of mass destruction.

We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction.

Sen. Edward Kennedy knows very directly. Senator Kennedy and I talked on several occasions prior to the war that my view was that the best evidence that I had seen was that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction.