Theory Quotes - Page 38

• A theory of motivation is defective if it renders intelligible behaviour which is not intelligible.

  Thomas Nagel

  Motivation, Psychology, Behaviour

  Thomas Nagel (2016). “The Possibility of Altruism”, p.34, Princeton University Press

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• Only a tiny fraction of corpses fossilize, and we are lucky to have as many intermediate fossils as we do. We could easily have had no fossils at all, and still the evidence for evolution from other sources, such as molecular genetics and geographical distribution, would be overwhelmingly strong. On the other hand, evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water.

  Richard Dawkins

  Strong, Hands, Water

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.154, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• As a loyal believer in the Auteur Theory I first felt editing was but the logical consequence of the way in which one shoots. But, what I learned is that it is actually another writing.

  Bernardo Bertolucci

  Writing, Editing, Loyal

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• The fundamental religious objection to the theory of evolution is not scientific but moral. [Fundamentalists believe that] evolutionary theory must be opposed because it leads to rampant immorality, on both the personal and political scales. The basic cause of this immorality is atheism.

  Elizabeth S. Anderson

  Religious, Believe, Theory Of Evolution

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• Nowhere was Darwin able to point to one bona fide case of natural selection having actually generated evolutionary change in nature....Ultimately, the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century.

  Michael Denton

  Theory Of Evolution, Able, Natural

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• Evolution is the creation-myth of our age. By telling us our origin it shapes our views of what we are. It influences not just our thought, but our feelings and actions too, in a way which goes far beyond its official function as a biological theory.

  Mary Midgley

  Views, Feelings, Age

  Mary Midgley, David Midgley (2005). “The Essential Mary Midgley”, p.246, Psychology Press

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• The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory -is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation - both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof.

  L. Harrison Matthews

  Theory Of Evolution, Special, Peculiar

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• To my mind, the theory of [evolution] does not stand up at all. If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms, natural forces, and radiation [i.e., time, chance, and chemistry], how has it come into being? I think, however, that we must go further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation.

  Henry Lipson

  Thinking, Theory Of Evolution, Mind

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• There is the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form. This theory can be called the 'general theory of evolution,' and the evidence which supports this is not sufficiently strong to allow us to consider it as anything more than a working hypothesis.

  Gerald A. Kerkut

  Strong, Theory Of Evolution, Support

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• We have reached a situation where a theory has been accepted as fact by some, and possible contrary evidence is shunted aside. [This is] mythology rather than science.

  Robert Shapiro

  Facts, Evolution, Accepted

  Robert Shapiro (1987). “Origins: a skeptic's guide to the creation of life on earth”, Bantam Dell Pub Group

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• The philosophy of praxis does not aim at the peaceful resolution of existing contradictions in history and society, but is the very theory of these contradictions. It is not the instrument of government of the dominant groups in order to gain the consent and exercise hegemony over the subaltern classes. It is the expression of subaltern classes who want to educate themselves in the art of government and who have an interest in knowing all truths, even the unpleasant ones, and in avoiding the impossible deceptions of the upper class, and even more their own.

  Antonio Gramsci

  Art, Philosophy, Exercise

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• I have been a biologist for a long time, and I hope I never stop getting shivers in my spine when I think about the beauty of how we come to know things in biology. Biologists make predictions, then they go out into the field or the lab to see if their predictions hold up. When hundreds of predictions of this sort are fulfilled, a theory reaches the point where it becomes certain, at least on a broad level. And that is where we are with evolution.

  Darrel R. Falk

  Thinking, Long, Levels

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• Perhaps generations of students of human evolution, including myself, have been flailing about in the dark; that our data base is too sparse, too slippery, for it to be able to mold our theories. Rather the theories are more statements about us and ideology than about the past. Paleontology reveals more about how humans view themselves than it does about how humans came about, but that is heresy.

  David Pilbeam

  Dark, Past, Data

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• Within the period of human history we do not know of a single instance of the transformation of one species into another one. It may be claimed that the theory of descent is lacking, therefore, in the most essential feature that it needs to place the theory on a scientific basis, this must be admitted.

  Thomas Hunt Morgan

  May, Essentials, Needs

  Thomas Hunt Morgan (1903). “Evolution and adaptation”

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• We have now the remarkable spectacle that just when many scientific men are agreed that there is no part of the Darwinian system that is of any great influence, and that, as a whole, the theory is not only unproved, but impossible, the ignorant, half-educated masses have acquired the idea that it is to be accepted as a fundamental fact.

  Thomas Dwight

  Men, Ideas, Ignorant

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• Darwin's theory of evolution is the last of the great nineteenth-century mystery religions. And as we speak it is now following Freudians and Marxism into the Nether regions, and I'm quite sure that Freud, Marx and Darwin are commiserating one with the other in the dark dungeon where discarded gods gather.

  David Berlinski

  Dark, Theory Of Evolution, Lasts

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• There are gaps in the fossil graveyard, places where there should be intermediate forms, but where there is nothing whatsoever instead. No paleontologist..denies that this is so. It is simply a fact, Darwin's theory and the fossil record are in conflict.

  David Berlinski

  Gaps, Fossils, Facts

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• Perhaps the best argument...that the Big Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheist physicists. At times this has led to scientific ideas...being advanced with a tenacity which so exceeds their intrinsic worth that one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his or her theory.

  Christopher Isham

  Atheist, Lying, Ideas

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• Whether the ice caps melt, or expand - whatever happens - the anthropogenic global warming theorists claim it confirms their theory. A perfect example of a pseudo-science like astrology.

  Frank J. Tipler

  Ice, Astrology, Perfect

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• We shall suffer no attachment to literature, no taste for abstract discussion, no love of purely intellectual theories, to seduce us from our devotion to the cause of the oppressed, the down trodden, the insulted and injured masses of our fellow men.

  George Ripley

  Men, Intellectual, Suffering

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• Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be justified upon the basis that the States are Sovereign. There was a time when none denied it. I hope the time may come again, when a better comprehension of the theory of our Government, and the inalienable rights of the people of the States, will prevent any one from denying that each State is a Sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants which it has made to any agent whomsoever.

  Jefferson Davis

  Rights, Government, Class

  Jefferson Davis (1963). “The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (Complete)”, p.260, Library of Alexandria

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• The question is, do we have a shadow government? And, if we do, who are those intelligent minority that is -- that is guiding us through? And where are they guiding us to? If you skip past all of the puppets and the strings, if you stop looking at the puppets themselves, you have to see who's behind the puppets. Who is choosing the puppets and the players? Who's the puppet master? George Soros.

  Glenn Beck

  Intelligent, Past, Player

  "Soros: Rupert Murdoch and Fox are Like Nazis, Tea Partiers are Being Deceived and Misled". Interview with Noel Sheppard, www.newsbusters.org. February 20, 2011.

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• Healing of the world's woes will not come through this or that social or political theory; not through violent changes in government, but in the still small voice that speaks to the conscience and the heart.

  Arthur James Moore

  Healing, Heart, Government

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• According to the estimate of a prominent advertising firm, above 90 per cent, of the earning capacity of the prominent nostrums is represented by their advertising. And all this advertising is based on the well-proven theory of the public's pitiable ignorance and gullibility in the vitally important matter of health.

  Samuel Hopkins Adams

  Ignorance, Drug, Important

  Samuel Hopkins Adams (1912). “The Great American fraud”

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• No, I don't understand my husband's theory of relativity, but I know my husband and I know he can be trusted.

  Elsa Einstein

  Funny, Husband, Women

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