Pull The Plug On Ignorance » Quote of the Day http://pulltheplugonignorance.com On the matters of faiths, beliefs, sciences and worldviews. Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:18:39 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Quote of the Day http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/10/quote-of-the-day-14/ http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/10/quote-of-the-day-14/#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:32:26 +0000 Nathaniel http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/?p=263 “In the American vernacular, “theory” often means “imperfect fact”–part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is “only” a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can’t even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): “Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science—that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was.”

Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don’t go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s in this century, but apples didn’t suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

Moreover, “fact” doesn’t mean “absolute certainty”; there ain’t no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science “fact” can only mean “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent.” I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory—natural selection—to explain the mechanism of evolution.”

Stephen J. Gould, ” Evolution as Fact and Theory”; Discover, May 1981

]]> http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/10/quote-of-the-day-14/feed/ 0 Quote of the Day http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/09/quote-of-the-day-13/ http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/09/quote-of-the-day-13/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:05:10 +0000 Nathaniel http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/?p=240 “Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche

]]> http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/09/quote-of-the-day-13/feed/ 0 Quote of the Day http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/08/quote-of-the-day-12/ http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/08/quote-of-the-day-12/#comments Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:19:39 +0000 Nathaniel http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/?p=209

A man said to the universe:

“Sir, I exist!

“However,” replied the universe,

“The fact has not created in me

“A sense of obligation.”

- Stephen Crane

]]> http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/08/quote-of-the-day-12/feed/ 0 Quote of the Day http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/07/quote-of-the-day-11/ http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/07/quote-of-the-day-11/#comments Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:17:51 +0000 Nathaniel http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/?p=191

You know, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime? Well, tell a kid something’s irrational and you help him for a day, teach a kid how to think rationally and he’ll teach himself for a lifetime.

Jen, Blag Hag

]]> http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/07/quote-of-the-day-11/feed/ 0 Quote of the Day http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/07/quote-of-the-day-10/ http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/07/quote-of-the-day-10/#comments Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:10:20 +0000 Nathaniel http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/?p=189

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

Arthur C. Clarke

]]> http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/07/quote-of-the-day-10/feed/ 0 Quote of the Day http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/07/quote-of-the-day-9/ http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/07/quote-of-the-day-9/#comments Mon, 13 Jul 2009 07:54:42 +0000 Nathaniel http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/?p=182

The amount of speculation being passed off as facts by ahteists in this blog is truly staggering

- Ephemeral Mortal, comment on Ray’s post The Basics of Science at Atheist Central

]]> http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/07/quote-of-the-day-9/feed/ 8 Quote of the Day http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/06/quote-of-the-day-8/ http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/06/quote-of-the-day-8/#comments Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:27:26 +0000 Nathaniel http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/?p=167

It’s easy being a God. If you have the right equipment

- “Ilium”, Dan Simmons

]]> http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/06/quote-of-the-day-8/feed/ 0 Quote of the Day http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/06/quote-of-the-day-7/ http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/06/quote-of-the-day-7/#comments Wed, 03 Jun 2009 06:33:14 +0000 Nathaniel http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/?p=144

That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

- Christopher Hitchens

]]> http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/06/quote-of-the-day-7/feed/ 0 Quote of the Day http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/04/quote-of-the-day-6/ http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/04/quote-of-the-day-6/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:53:10 +0000 Nathaniel http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/?p=116

I entirely reject, as in my judgment quite unnecessary, any subsequent addition ‘of new powers and attributes and forces,’ or of any ‘principle of improvement, except in so far as every character which is naturally selected or preserved is in some way an advantage or improvement, otherwise it would not have been selected. If I were convinced that I required such additions to the theory of natural selection, I would reject it as rubbish. . . I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent.

- Charles Darwin

]]> http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/04/quote-of-the-day-6/feed/ 0 Quote of the Day http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/04/quote-of-the-day-5/ http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/04/quote-of-the-day-5/#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2009 08:34:31 +0000 Nathaniel http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/?p=91

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.

- Adam Smith (1723-90) Scottish economist. The Wealth of Nations, 1776.

]]> http://pulltheplugonignorance.com/2009/04/quote-of-the-day-5/feed/ 0