Sam Ervin Quotes

Any sufficiently badly-written science is indistinguishable from magic.

The U.S. is, so far as I know, the only nation which places such extensive reliance on the polygraph. It has gotten us into a lot of trouble.

And they asked me to take a polygraph as to the allegations and reports I'd made. I volunteered and I took the polygraph and passed it without a glitch.

Bogus science gives vague, undisciplined thinking the look of seriousness and truth.

A lot of science started off as magic, where people were burned at the stake for doing science basically.

People accused me of leaving Napoli for money, but that was not true and really annoyed my family.

I was not aware of a ton of the stuff that was being said about me out in the world since I wasn't able to get British or American headlines from my prison cell in Perugia. But I was aware that in the courtroom, I was being called a succubus, a man-eater, 'Foxy Knoxy.'

Forensic science offers great potential, as it draws on almost every discipline and, in doing so, creates widespread opportunity for innovation.

I don't want to act like the witch trials all over New England were warranted, but when you live in a culture that believes something is real, it feels very real.

Astrology is interesting but not very accurate. It's a science I don't trust very much.

Ultimately, bridging the practice of forensic science and the public's need for story may be difficult. We crave narrative, order from chaos, a mystery solved, good guys winning out over the bad ones. But science, and forensic science, should be more neutral and, thus, more nuanced.

Fingerprint matching is - you know the whole thing about how no two fingerprints are alike? That's not strictly true.

When we learned about Salem at school, the whole thing was confusing. Because the idea of the witch hunt is used as a symbol to describe people searching for something that's basically untrue, it cemented in my mind as a kid that witches weren't real.

I know for me, personally, when something is being said about me that isn't true, it's extremely hurtful and frustrating.

For the liespotter who knows how to listen well, the random words, sounds, and phrases in a person's speech are never as random as they seem. They offer a clear sightline into the liar's psyche.

Redheads were particularly persecuted during the European witch trials of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The colour was associated with the devil, and the pale skin which most redheads have was thought unnatural and deathly.

Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector.

Flying saucers are nothing more than miracles, and they occur essentially to bedevil science.

Religions are often state-protected nurseries of pseudoscience, although there's no reason why religions have to play that role. In a way, it's an artefact from times long gone.

A group of psychologists say they have discovered twenty-three different body language indicators that show whether or not a person is lying. If you would like to see all twenty-three at the same time, they recommend taking a guided tour of the White House

In the way that scepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to ignore the fact that, deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the sceptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.

I'm not a magician. I'am an alchemyst, a man of science, though perhaps not the science you would be familiar with.

Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance.

Most 20th century academic physicists, and academia as a whole, simply did not want to touch the subject of consciousness. We have seen psychology grow up, and we've seen the development of neurophysiology and other much more sophisticated science, but only in the recent years have the tools of quantum mechanics been applied to anything representing human scale size.

I suspect that our own faith in psychiatry will seem as touchingly quaint to the future as our grandparents' belief in phrenology seems now to us.