Explanation Quotes - page 10
The rapid change in many aspects of morality, even in the last century, also suggests that much of its "innateness” comes not from evolution but from learning. That's because evolutionary change simply doesn't occur fast enough to explain societal changes like our realization that women are not an inferior moiety of humanity, or that we shouldn't torture prisoners. The explanation for these changes must reside in reason and learning: our realization that there is no rational basis for giving ourselves moral privilege over those who belong to other groups.
Jerry Coyne
The harm, as I've said repeatedly, comes not from the existence of religion itself, but from its reliance on and glorification of faith-belief, or, if you will, "trust” or "confidence”-without supporting evidence. And faith, as employed in religion (and in most other areas), is a danger to both science and society. The danger to science is in how faith warps the public understanding of science: by arguing, for instance, that science is based just as strongly on faith as is religion; by claiming that revelation or the guidance of ancient books is just as reliable a guide to truth about our universe as are the tools of science; by thinking that an adequate explanation can be based on what is personally appealing rather than on what stands the test of empirical study.
Jerry Coyne
In the tragedies of the early seventeenth century, madness too provided the dénouement, but it did so in liberating the truth. It still opened onto language, to a renewed form of speech, that of explanation and of the real regained. The most it could ever be was the penultimate moment of tragedy. Not the closing moment, as in Andromaque, where no truth appears, other than, in Delirium, the truth of a passion that finds its fullest, most perfect expression in madness.
Michel Foucault
In the case of the cosmos, [...] even if we don't understand how it came about, it's not helpful to postulate a creator, because the creator is the very kind of thing that needs an explanation - and although it's difficult enough to explain how a very simple origin of the universe came into being - how matter and energy, how one or two physical constants came into existence - although it's difficult enough to think how simplicity came into existence, it's a hell of a lot harder to think how something as complicated as a God comes into existence - difficult enough to think of how a deist God comes into existence, and even more difficult to think of - how a Christian God, who actually cares about things like sin and gets Himself born of a virgin.
Richard Dawkins
Now for Heaven's sake go to bed. Don't worry about how it was done just go straight to bed. Leave the washing-up and get into bed fully clothed. If any of you want to know how any of it was done, please feel free to write in to me at my home address which will come up on the screen in a moment and I will give you a full and honest explanation of anything you may ask.
Derren Brown
Like blaming evil, the copycat rationale is so empty that it doesn't even qualify as a convenient explanation... dismissing this rash of murder and sympathy- across the country, across a wide variety of students- as simply copycat shooters assumes that kids operate at about the same intelligence level as sardines.
Mark Ames
Emir said: "This way everyone lives in a body of a kind for a while, and then leaves its body behind so that it can be remade for someone else. That's a very simple explanation, but it will do for now. Then all new life has a chance to live, and lots of room. Then we each take turns, so we can come back on new bodies when there's room available.
Robert Butts
I am very concerned about the lack of a clear objective from the president on what his goals are in Libya and our role should be. As Obama has recently authorized the launch of air strikes in Libya, I believe the American people and Congress deserve an explanation. I'm asking for the president to explain. It's the president's responsibility to explain on what basis these actions are being taken.
Kristi Noem
The underlying physical laws necessary for the mathematical theory of a large part of physics and the whole of chemistry are thus completely known, and the difficulty is only that the exact application of these laws leads to equations much too complicated to be soluble. It therefore becomes desirable that approximate practical methods of applying quantum mechanics should be developed, which can lead to an explanation of the main features of complex atomic systems without too much computation.
Paul Dirac
Myth was the mystery plus the fantasy - gods, anthropomorphized animals and birds, chimera, phantasmagorical creatures - that posits out of the imagination some sort of explanation for the mystery. Humans and their fellow creatures were the materiality of the story, but as Nikos Kazantzakis once wrote, 'Art is the representation not of the body but of the forces which created the body.
Nadine Gordimer
