620 Quotes About Evidence

It is the desire for explanations that are at once systematic and controllable by factual evidence that generates science; and it is the organization and classification of knowledge on the basis of explanatory principles that is the distinctive goal of the sciences.

We should be agnostic about those things for which there is no evidence. We should not hold beliefs merely because they gratify our desires for afterlife, immortality, heaven, hell, etc.

[D]idn't Aristarchus and the Pythagoreans propose heliocentrism in ancient times? If only they had prevailed, we might have had Real Science millennia sooner. What was their evidence?Well, you see, fire is nobler than earth and the center is a nobler position. So fire has to be in the center. QED.There are many names for this sort of thinking, but "scientific" is not one of them.

But at the same time, there must never be the least hesitation in giving up a position the moment it is shown to be untenable. It is not going too far to say that the greatness of a scientific investigator does not rest on the fact of his having never made a mistake, but rather on his readiness to admit that he has done so, whenever the contrary evidence is cogent enough.

In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.

People judge others lacking all the evidence because humans are far too good at believing they are correct. Hence politics.

I must never equate the degree of pain as evidencing the incorrectness of a decision, for if I do I will default on some of the most critical decisions I should have ever made.

One or two steps alone do not guarantee the evidence of your success unless you have your own peculiar definition for success. And I assure you; that definition is wrong! Do it again and again!

A question of proof. That's a good title for a detective story, if you ever write one.