Quotes About Evidence

But against love, the case was solid. Easily argued. And you could, indeed, hold it in your hand.

it is not what you do or don't do, but how convincingly you can be accused of it.

Nie mo?emy mówi? o autorytecie tam, gdzie nie ma nic, prócz dowodów.

But never being wrong is no proof that the method of testing is sound for all cases

about finding evidence of the past) And when you get that confirmation, it would instantly become the past itself. So in effect, you would be using the past, which does not exist, to confirm something else from the past. And if you repeat the process a thousand times, with a thousand different pieces of evidence, together they would still be nothing but impressions of the past supporting other impressions of the past.

In this sort of situation, all it takes is one idiot to suggest witchcraft as the problem, and from that point on, confirmation bias does the rest. Once your brain filter is set to look for witches, all evidence fits into the "witch" frame.

The key to career advancement is appearing valuable despite all hard evidence to the contrary. … If you add any actual value to your company today, your career is probably not moving in the right direction. Real work is for people at the bottom who plan to stay there.

Most people think they have perfectly good bullshit detectors. But if that were the case, trial juries would always be unanimous, and we'd all have the same religious beliefs.

I am the prosecutor. I represent the state. I am here to present to you the evidence of a crime. Together you will weigh this evidence. You will deliberate upon it. You will decide if it proves the defendant's guilt.

We believe our history books. In fact, many millions of people still cling to the thoroughly discredited religious belief that mankind is only four thousand years old. Science labors to ignore the mounting evidence that we may not be the only intelligent life form on this planet.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. What have we to offer in exchange? Uncertainty! Insecurity! – Isaac Asimov

My background is basically scientific math. My Dad was a physicist, so I have it in my blood somewhere. Scientific method is very important to me. I think anything that contradicts it is probably not true.

Fortunately for the historian, the court to which his evidence is submitted has no fixed term; interesting cases can be argued before it indefinitely. The jury can remain out for as long as it takes to gather the requisite data and come to a sound decision... the historian can watch with delight or consternation as the case is tried and retried by others, who may prove his hunches right or wrong." The Kindness of Strangers

when a person's commitment to evidence and logic grows dangerously thin or simply snaps under the burden of fear, wishful thinking, tribalism, or ecstasy, we recognize that he's being "religious.

The most important scientific concept is that an assertion is often an empirical question, settled by collecting evidence. The plural of anecdote is not data, and the plural of opinion is not facts. Quality peer-reviewed scientific evidence accumulates into knowledge. People's stories are stories, and fiction keeps us going. But science should settle policy.

Lack of certainty is precisely what makes conclusions more reliable than the conclusions of those who are certain, because the good scientist will be ready to shift to a different point of view if better evidence or novel arguments emerge. Therefore certainty is not only something of no use but is also in fact damaging, if we value reliability.

Evidence that people are selling stocks at a time when they ought to be eating lunch is always regarded as a serious matter.

Usually it is not until there is evidence that the employee [who has changed jobs] has not lived up to his contract, expressed or implied, to maintain secrecy, that the former employer can take action. In the law of torts there is the maxim: Every dog has one free bite. A dog cannot be presumed to be vicious until he has proved that he is by biting someone. As with a dog, the former employer may have to wait for a former employee to commit some overt act before he can act.

If the evidence says you're wrong, you don't have the right theory. You change the theory, not the evidence.

The E.U. has moved to combat global terrorism by instituting common European arrest and evidence warrants and creating a joint situation center to pool and analyze intelligence.

Sometimes, coming home in the early morning like this, I'd imagine things had altered while I was absent: a knife on the bread board that I didn't remember leaving out, a book face down on the table, a cup brimming with tea and dishwater in the sink. The evidence I wanted didn't need to be too elaborate or detailed. I could have constructed an entire afterlife from a half-moon of lemon rind or a small blister of jam on the tablecloth.

If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go.

As to their question-How can we be assured that this has sprung from God unless we have recourse to the decree of the church?-it is as if someone asked: Whence will we learn to distinguish light from darkness, white from black, sweet from bitter? Indeed, Scripture exhibits fully as clear evidence of its own truth as white and black things do of their color, or sweet and bitter things do of their taste.