Peter Jamison Quotes

Public health authorities exaggerate health risks for the same reason that sharks eat seals—because that’s just what they do.

Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

I can attest to the very real potential for unnecessary pain, suffering, and death when the work of public-health officials is curtailed.

The spread of the disease is under control. What I worry about is the spread of fear of the disease is not under control.

Skepticism is the lifeblood of scientific progress. By constantly asking whether there is a different answer, a better approach or an alternative view, scientists drive improvements and innovations that ultimately benefit everyone. It is not “antiscience” to be skeptical—it’s definitively pro-science.

But whereas skepticism and uncertainty have always been the heart and soul of science, confidence and certainty are the coin of the realm in much of today’s public discourse. Unquestioning confidence is deeply troubling for the scientific community because it is not the currency we trade in, and it has led people in America and around the world to question scientific enterprise itself. We should all be troubled when science is treated as if it were an ideology rather than a discipline.

We have been embarked on what I would call a proactive strategy that looks at our gun violence as a public health crisis, which is what it is. That means we look at the root causes of the violence.

I respect and believe skeptics.

I would proclaim that the vast majority of what [say, Scientific American] is true-yet my ability to defend such a claim is weaker than I would like. And most likely the readers, authors, and editors of that magazine would be equally hard pressed to come up with cogent, non-technical arguments convincing a skeptic of this point, especially if pitted against a clever lawyer arguing the contrary. How come Truth is such a slippery beast?

By the year 2025, 500 million people will die of smoking. Now, that's a Vietnam War every day for 27 years. That's the Titanic sinking every 27 minutes for 27 years.

Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about.

When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty - some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.

I don't think we are comforted by the fact that we were told there would never be a case of Ebola in the United States and obviously that's not correct.

I am, and have been for years, a confirmed anti-vaccinationist...I have not the least doubt in my mind that vaccination is a filthy process that is harmful in the end.

It's critically important that people trust you during a public health crisis.

In the sciences, the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man.

It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong.

Scientists do not join hands every Sunday and sing "Yes gravity is real! I know gravity is real! I will have faith! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen!" If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about the concept.

Give unqualified assent to no propositions but those the truth of which is so clear and distinct that they cannot be doubted. The enunciation of this first great commandment of science consecrated doubt.

Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.

One of the founding moments of public health in the 19th century effectively poisoned the water supply of London much more effectively than any modern day bioterrorist could have ever dreamed of doing.

If there was an epidemic, that definitely would make people accept vaccines. I wouldn't hope for that, of course, but if you wanted people to love vaccines, an epidemic would remind them how magical they are.

Science is not sacrosanct. The mere fact that it exists, is admired, has results is not sufficient for making it a measure of excellence. Modern science arose from global objections against earlier views and rationalism itself, the idea that there are general rules and standards for conducting our affairs, affairs of knowledge included, arose from global objections to common sense.

The pedant and the priest have always been the most expert of logicians - and the most diligent disseminators of nonsense and worse.