Empirical Evidence Quotes

• There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.

  Terry Pratchett

  Thinking, Alzheimer's, Keys

  FaceBook post by Terry Pratchett from Apr 29, 2016

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• No one has the right to destroy another person's belief by demanding empirical evidence.

  Ann Landers

  Humanity, Belief, Persons

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• The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.

  Albert Einstein

  Education, Science, Numbers

  1970 Quoted in Life Magazine, 9 Jan.

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• To defy the authority of empirical evidence is to disqualify oneself as someone worthy of critical engagement in a dialogue.

  Dalai Lama

  Engagement, Authority, Worthy

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• The really important thing is learning how to sceptically question and rely on empirical evidence.

  Lawrence M. Krauss

  Important, Rely, Evidence

  "Making science interesting. Lawrence Krauss discusses what happens to scientific literacy". "The 7.30 Report" with Leigh Sales, www.abc.net.au. June 29, 2015.

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• We need science. We need empirical evidence. We can't just use mathematical reasoning to deduce the nature of the world.

  Rebecca Goldstein

  Needs, Use, World

  Source: bigthink.com

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• The disparagement of empirical evidence in favor of a metaphysical world of illusion has its origin in the conflicy between the emancipated individual of bourgeois society and his fate within that society.

  Max Horkheimer

  Fate, World, Favors

  Max Horkheimer (1972). “Critical Theory: Selected Essays”, p.138, A&C Black

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• History is replete with examples of what happens when any group of authorities do not have to answer to empirical evidence but are free to define truth as they see fit. None of the examples has a happy ending. Why should it be otherwise with therapy?

  Robert Todd Carroll

  Groups, Example, Answers

  "Repressed memory therapy (trauma-search therapy)". "The Skeptic's Dictionary" by Robert Todd Carroll, www.skepdic.com.

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• In the first place a philosophical proposition must be general. It must not deal specially with things on the surface of the earth, or within the solar system, or with any other portion of space and time. . . . This brings us to a second characteristic of philosophical propositions, namely that they must be a priori. A philosophical proposition must be such as can neither be proved nor disproved by empirical evidence. . . . Philosophy, if what has been said is correct, becomes indistinguishable from logic as that word has now come to be used.

  Bertrand Russell

  Time, Philosophy, Philosophical

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• It seems strange to make a priori arguments about the relative performance of governments and the markets in health care when there is so much empirical evidence.

  John Quiggin

  Government, Care, Libertarian

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• When I was younger, I'd get very empirical with myself. "I have a hypothesis about myself. I'll put myself in a situation, see what happens, then I'll draw a conclusion based on the empirical evidence. Hypothesis: I can play basketball." So I'd try. "Conclusion: I cannot play basketball."

  Demetri Martin

  Basketball, Play, Trying

  Interview with Litsa Dremousis, www.believermag.com. February 2006.

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• I'm all for empowerment and education, but the empirical evidence is that it doesn't work. That's why I say make it easy.

  Richard Thaler

  Empowerment, Easy, Evidence

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• Shamanism is a path of knowledge, not of faith, and that knowledge cannot come from me or anyone else in this reality. To acquire that knowledge, including the knowledge of the reality of the spirits, it is necessary to step through the shaman's doorway and acquire empirical evidence.

  Michael Harner

  Reality, Doorways, Path

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• We [ with Edward Herman] believe that the empirical evidence we review there - and elsewhere, in a great deal of joint and separate work - lends substantial support to the conclusions; whether that is true is for others to judge.

  Noam Chomsky

  Believe, Judging, Support

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• I have a standing offer of $250,000 to anyone who can give any empirical evidence (scientific proof) for evolution. My $250,000 offer demonstrates that the hypothesis of evolution is nothing more than a religious belief.

  Kent Hovind

  Religious, Giving, Scary

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• Evolutionary theory has nothing to say, in general, as to whether cheating is more advantageous than cooperating. There are many circumstances in which the contrary would be true, and empirical evidence, though it exists, has little bearing on real situations.

  Noam Chomsky

  Cheating, Real, Would Be

  Source: libcom.org

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• On the philosophical level, both Buddhism and modern science share a deep suspicion of any notion of absolutes, whether conceptualize as a transcendent being, as an eternal, unchanging principle such as soul, or as a fundamental substratum of reality. ... In the Buddhist investigation of reality, at least in principle, empirical evidence should triumph over scriptural authority, no matter how deeply venerated a scripture may be.

  Dalai Lama

  Inspirational, Buddhist, Philosophical

  Dalai Lama XIV, Rajiv Mehrotra (2010). “In My Own Words: An Introduction to My Teachings and Philosophy”, p.151, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• These guys [liberals] will never tire of spending our money and will never hold themselves accountable for their boondoggles. For them the failure of $5 trillion to eradicate poverty simply means that we haven't spent enough money. Ditto with education. The solution is always more money. No amount of empirical evidence will shake their socialist theology.

  David Limbaugh

  Mean, Guy, Poverty

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• There is still zero empirical evidence that anthropogenic production of CO2 is making any measurable contribution to the world's present warming trend.

  Alexander Cockburn

  Zero, World, Trends

  "Is Global Warming a Sin?" by Alexander Cockburn, www.counterpunch.org. April 28, 2007.

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• Given the ambiguity of religious texts and teachings, the mixed historical record, and the empirical evidence, it would be foolhardy to assert that religious faith necessarily upholds democratic values.

  Kenneth D. Wald

  Religious, Teaching, Historical

  Kenneth D. Wald, Allison Calhoun-Brown (2007). “Religion and Politics in the United States”, p.369, Rowman & Littlefield

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• There is no other proposition in economics that has more solid empirical evidence supporting it than the Efficient Market Hypothesis... In the literature of finance, accounting, and the economics of uncertainty, the EMH is accepted as a fact of life.

  Michael Jensen

  Investing, Literature, Facts

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• I do believe that when we're in the process of dying, that all these emergency circuits in the brain take over. I base what I'm saying not on any empirical evidence. I think it's very possible that when you're dying, these circuits open up, which would explain this whole white-light phenomena - when people clinically die and they see their relatives and stuff and say, "Hello, it's great to see you."

  Stephen King

  Believe, Thinking, Light

  Interview with Andy Greene, www.rollingstone.com. October 31, 2014.

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• The richer people, when they get another $100,000, or another million, or 10 million, don't tend to spend it as much as the poorer people would if they got another $100 or $1,000 or $5,000. All the empirical evidence suggests that the rich tend to consume a lower proportion of income than middle and lower-income people.

  Adair Turner, Baron Turner of Ecchinswell

  People, Income, Rich

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• Memeticists have to give empirical evidence to support the claim that, in the micro-processes of cultural transmission, elements of culture inherit all or nearly all their relevant properties from other elements of culture that they replicate.

  Dan Sperber

  Giving, Support, Culture

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• In philosophical terms, the opposite of rationalism is not irrationalism but empiricism, that is, a willingness to form beliefs on the basis of experience rather than from a priori deduction. Empirical evidence never yields the dogmatic certainty that accompanies logical deduction.

  John Quiggin

  Philosophical, Yield, Opposites

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