Evidence Quotes - page 14
An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. But this should not be taken to imply that there are good reasons to believe that it could not have started on the earth by a perfectly reasonable sequence of fairly ordinary chemical reactions. The plain fact is that the time available was too long, the many microenvironments on the earth's surface too diverse, the various chemical possibilities too numerous and our own knowledge and imagination too feeble to allow us to be able to unravel exactly how it might or might not have happened such a long time ago, especially as we have no experimental evidence from that era to check our ideas against.
Francis Crick
I argued that it was important not to place too much reliance on any single piece of experimental evidence. It might turn out to be misleading, as the 5.1 Å reflection undoubtedly was. Jim was a little more brash, stating that no good model ever accounted for all the facts, since some data was bound to be misleading if not plain wrong. A theory that did fit all the data would have been "carpentered" to do so and would thus be open to suspicion.
Francis Crick
Very often atheists themselves admit that they have no evidence of God's absence, but they try to put a different spin on it. They'll tell you, "No one can prove a universal negative” (like "There is no God”). They think this somehow excuses them from needing evidence against God's existence. But not only is it false that you can't prove a universal negative (all you have to do is show something is self-contradictory), but more importantly, this claim is really an admission that it's impossible to prove atheism! Atheism involves a universal negative, you can't prove a universal negative, therefore, atheism is unprovable. It turns out that it is the atheist who is believing a view for which there is and can be no evidence.
William Lane Craig
This age, which should adjudge happiness to be as valuable as soap or munitions, would never come so long as the workers accepted the testimony of paid spokesmen... to the effect that they were contented and happy, rather than the evidence of their own wincing nerves to the effect that they live in a polite version of hell.
Sinclair Lewis
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.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
[A rival theory that has to be better than the dominant "90 percent explanation” cannot go wrong very often and still stay in the contest. For the challenger of a 50 percent incumbent, some shortcomings are not that fatal. This comparative situation has to be remembered as argued by James Burnham:]... we must keep in mind an obvious principle of scientific method. To disprove the theory, it is not enough to show that it is not 100% certain,that difficulties confront it, and certain evidence seems to be against it. It must be further shown that it is less certain than alternative theories covering the same subject matter, that there are in its case more difficulties, more negative evidence than in the case of at least one alternative theory. No theory about what actually happens and will happen is ever ‘certain'.
James Burnham
Within a decade, maybe two or three, Christians will come around to treating gays no differently than they now treat other groups whom they previously persecuted - women, Jews, blacks - but not because of some new interpretation of a biblical passage, or because of a new revelation from God. These changes will come about the same way that they always do: by the oppressed minority fighting for the right to be treated equally, and by a few enlightened members of the oppressing majority supporting their cause. Then what will happen is that Christians will take credit for the civil liberation of gays, dig through the historical record and find a few Christian bloggers or preachers who had the courage and the character to stand up for Gay rights when their fellow Christians would not, and then cite those as evidence that were it not for Christianity gays would not be equal.
Michael Shermer
They show as little Reason as Conscience who put the matter by with saying-"Men, in some cases, are lawfully made Slaves, and why may not these?" So men, in some cases, are lawfully put to death, deprived of their goods, without their consent; may any man, therefore, be treated so, without any conviction of desert? Nor is this plea mended by adding-"They are set forth to us as slaves, and we buy them without farther inquiry, let the sellers see to it." Such men may as well join with a known band of robbers, buy their ill-got goods, and help on the trade; ignorance is no more pleadable in one case than the other; the sellers plainly own how they obtain them. But none can lawfully buy without evidence that they are not concurring with Men-Stealers; and as the true owner has a right to reclaim his goods that were stolen, and sold; so the slave, who is proper owner of his freedom, has a right to reclaim it, however often sold.
Thomas Paine
In preparing this record, penned by my own hand, of my life and my participation in our great struggles for national existence, human liberty and political equality, I make no pretence to literary merit. The motive that induces me is not authorship. The import of the subject matter of my narrative is my only claim to attention. The statements of facts are a matter of documentary evidence. The comments are my own and show how I saw the matters treated of, whether others saw them in the same light or not. Respectfully dedicating this work to the millions of armed men and devoted women who participated in the great wars of this country, I leave it as a heritage to my wife and son.
Douglas MacArthur
The question is then how can we decide what anybody in the ancient world said. We can't. We wish we could. It would be nice if we could. You would like to think that because you can go to the store and buy an edition of Plato that you are actually reading Plato, but the problem is that we just do not have the kind of evidence that we need in order to establish what ancient authors actually wrote.
Bart D. Ehrman
To play the trumpet, you must train your lips for a long time. When I was twelve or thirteen I was a good player, but I lost the skill and now I play very badly. I do it every day even so. The reason is that I want to return to my childhood. For me, the trumpet is evidence of the sort of young man I was.
Umberto Eco
There is the chance, too, if we have the imagination to see it, to resurrect the vitality of European civilisation and give to our new generation of Europeans the inspiration to set against the alien but undeniably dynamic, almost religious, creed of Communism. At this point in time when we are seeking reconciliation and yet are faced with increasing evidence of militancy everywhere, I look to an active European Community as a necessary complement to the NATO Alliance.
Alec Douglas-Home
[Attlee] reminded the delegates that it was vital to reduce costs by greater efficiency, which meant that both employers and employed had to seek in every way to attain it. He did not believe in lowering wages as a means of reducing costs, but equally it was necessary to realize that increases of wages that were not matched by increases of production would gravely impair their chances of getting rapidly over their difficulties. Increased demands for money payments, when there was no increase of goods to meet them led straight away to inflation. There was a danger that when a justifiable advance in wages for an under-paid section of the workers had been granted it resulted in demands from those who had enjoyed higher wages to maintain the same differential. This was bad economics and bad social morality. He had been disturbed at the evidence that some people were abusing the social services in such matters as sickness benefit. They could not have them sabotaged by misuse.
Clement Attlee
The final verdict will not be in the obituaries. The final verdict will be when the PhD students dig out the archives, read my old papers, assess what my enemies have said, sift the evidence and seek the truth. I'm not saying that everything I did was right, but everything I did was for an honourable purpose.
Lee Kuan Yew
