Steve Albini Quotes

More frightening than any particular beliefs or policies is an utter lack of any sense of a need to test those beliefs and policies against hard evidence. Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts, but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision.

What we can do is provide the tools, through our educational system, for people to be able to tell sense from nonsense. These tools include the scientific method, skeptical questioning, empirical evidence, verifying sources, etc.

I'm a rationalist and a skeptic, someone who safely separates faith from reason.

Science is not a body of facts. Science is a state of mind. It is a way of viewing the world, of facing reality square on but taking nothing on its face. It is about attacking a problem with the most manicured of claws and tearing it down into sensible, edible pieces.

I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know. How can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.

Science is a way of thinking that helps you not to fool yourself.

No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.

Scientific research can reduce superstition by encouraging people to think and view things in terms of cause and effect.

The really important thing is learning how to sceptically question and rely on empirical evidence.

As time passed I became an avid reader of popular scientific books, wanting to know as much as I could about the world in which I lived. Gradually I began to see a pattern of nonsense in much scientific writing. Scientific explanations given regarding the origins or functioning of various phenomena simply didn't make sense.

Scientific reasoning is a dialogue between the possible and the actual, between proposal and disposal between what might be true, and what is in fact the case.

Skeptics question the validity of a particular claim by calling for evidence to prove or disprove it.

Being a skeptic just means being rational and empirical: thinking and seeing before believing.

The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority.

We shouldn't accept things just because somebody says so.

Science is the refusal to believe on the basis of hope.

Science is basically an inoculation against charlatans.

Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice. Science for its part will test relentlessly every assumption about the human condition.

True science teaches, above all, to doubt

I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.

If there is any consistent enemy of science, it is not religion, but irrationalism.

Science is a method, not a religion, yet it can be just as close-minded. Open minds here Claire. Always open minds. Question everything, accept nothing as fact until you prove it for yourself.

The doubter is a true man of science: he doubts only himself and his interpretations, but he believes in science.

Science is not wisdom.

If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide that proves they should value evidence. If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic?