Brian Cox Quotes

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

Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being.

Unscientific man is beset by a deplorable desire to have been right. The scientist is distinguished by a desire to be right.

A truly open mind means forcing our imaginations to conform to the evidence of reality, and not vice versa.

A philosopher goes where the truth leads and has no patience with mere emotion.

My colleagues have learned to respect nothing but evidence, and to believe that their highest duty lies in submitting to it, however it may jar against their inclinations.

Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. ... Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.

I'm disturbed when people let superstition, magical thinking, extreme conspiracy theories and so on blur their minds.

Embrace truth as it is revealed to-day by human reason.

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?

I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud.

Indeed the reasoned criticism of a prevailing belief is a service to the proponents of that belief; if they are incapable of defending it, they are well advised to abandon it. This self-questioning and error-correcting aspect of the scientific method is its most striking property.

To avoid being drawn into error, keep a firm grip on the truth.

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.

"True science has no belief," says Dr. Fenwick, in Bulwer-Lytton's 'Strange Story;' "true science knows but three states of mind: denial, conviction, and the vast interval between the two, which is not belief, but the suspension of judgment." Such, perhaps, was true science in Dr. Fenwick's days. But the true science of our modern times proceeds otherwise; it either denies point-blank, without any preliminary investigation, or sits in the interim, between denial and conviction, and, dictionary in hand, invents new Graeco-Latin appellations for non-existing kinds of hysteria!

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

Why understand when you can believe?

The beliefs which we have most warrant for, have no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded.

Without the voice of reason, every faith is its own curse.

Practically, Science is true; and Faith is foolish.

I believe that through its rational evaluation of truth and indifference to personal belief, science transcends religious and political divisions and so does bind us into a greater, more resilient whole.

My religion recognizes no obligation to resolve doubt other than through rational means; and it commands no mere faith in eternal truths

It is foolish to be convinced without evidence, but it is equally foolish to refuse to be convinced by real evidence.

My mind is just as open as it ever was, professor. But it's a scientific mind, and there's no place in it for superstitions.

Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, 'Yes, gravity is real! I will have faith!'