76 Quotes by Ian Hacking

The stability of what's called the Standard Model of particle physics and its ability to make so many clever predictions with immense precision suggests that we may just be stuck with it, and there may never be an overthrow of that.

Each of us becomes a new person as we re-describe the past.

The debate about who decides what gets taught is fascinating, albeit excruciating for those who have to defend the schools against bunkum.

The public debate about evolution itself, as opposed to whether to teach it, is something else. It is boring, demeaning, and insufferably dull.

Unfortunately, anti-Darwinism keeps playing minor variations on the same negative themes and adds nothing to our understanding of life.

Some people say they use images to help them remember intricacies. Others say they just remember. If they are able to form an image of the face, it is because they remember how it was: it is not that an image guides memory, but that memory produces an image, or the sense of imaging. We have no agreed way to talk clearly about such things.

All peoples have evolved extraordinarily precise ways of settling issues about the things that matter to them.

We do not need to have a way to talk clearly about other people's images.

Antonio Damasio is a distinguished neuroscientist with a flair for writing about science and an enthusiasm for philosophizing.