Joseph McCabe Quotes

I'm a bit of a freak for evidence-based analysis. I strongly believe in data.

Opinions don't affect facts. But facts should affect opinions, and do, if you're rational

My position is that we should not succumb to irrational belief.

All policies should be guided by science, not just whose voice is the loudest.

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

Be able to defend your arguments in a rational way. Otherwise, all you have is an opinion.

Science has not been successful by making up explanations of things that fit with the current social fabric.

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

The intelligence community is intended to base its intelligence estimates on facts and analysis—not philosophy and conviction.

If the facts change, I’ll change my opinion. What do you do, Sir?

I attack ideas. I don't attack people. And some very good people have some very bad ideas. And if you can't separate the two, you gotta get another day job. You don't want to be a judge. At least not a judge on a multi-member panel.

Generally, TED speakers are believers in the scientific method.

I'm the type of person who responds to facts.

It is my mission to put sensible and evidence-based information above politics and exaggeration.

Disregard belief systems that aren't based on empirical studies.

No disrespect, but I don't make decisions based on opinions.

The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion - in the long run, these are the only people who count.

Who besides guys like me are part of the reality-based community?

One of the reasons for its success is that science has a built-in, error-correcting machinery at its very heart. Some may consider this an overbroad characterization, but to me every time we exercise self-criticism, every time we test our ideas against the outside world, we are doing science. When we are self-indulgent and uncritical, when we confuse hopes and facts, we slide into pseudoscience and superstition.

I might respect you as a brilliant intellect, runner, musician or juggler. But respect your BELIEFS? Only if they're supported by evidence.

[E]mpathy - not squishy self-serving conflict avoidance - is the hand-maiden, not the enemy, of reason and intellectual inquiry.

A miscalculation is not negligence, nor prudence a crime. I am a scientist. I base my action or inaction upon probability and evidence. There is a reason we call science a discipline! Inferior minds bolt or build pyres to roast the witches in their midst!

What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry.

You're neither right nor wrong because other people agree with you. You're right because your facts are right and your reasoning is right - that's the only thing that makes you right. And if your facts and reasoning are right, you don't have to worry about anybody else.

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