Michael Shermer Quotes

Science has authority, not because of white coats, or titles, but because of precision and transparency: you explain your theory, set out your evidence, and reference the studies that support your case.

You don't want to come out with anything that's wrong, of course, in a scientific, you know, a major scientific announcement, and so you're being so careful trying to check, well maybe it's this, maybe it's that, you're looking at every possible thing.

I think there are ways that graduate students can fact-check their work. I think there are ways that we can do this that don't require massive amounts of resources.

That's the nice thing about the field of science - the test of time sorts out the truth.

We need to be able to turn to our immediate circle to ascertain whether our internal checks and balances are functional and to be able to rely on them to point out gross errors.

Engineers are not superhuman. They make mistakes in their assumptions, in their calculations, in their conclusions. That they make mistakes is forgivable; that they catch them is imperative. Thus it is the essence of modern engineering not only to be able to check one's own work but also to have one's work checked and to be able to check the work of others.

If any sort of error is inexcusable, it's an incorrect phone number. One of the cardinal rules of copy editing is that every phone number published must be checked.

If bloggers are to improve our public discourse - helping busy and usually uninformed people make sense of the world - it is necessary to use some sort of standard with which to judge their reliability. Perhaps the answer (strictly advisory) is a body of their peers. Perhaps not.

Theorists have wonderful ideas which take years and years to be verified.

Governmental officials -- including those whose principal duty is to enforce the law --have violated or ignored the law over long periods of time and have advocated and defended their right to break the law. The Constitutional system of checks and balances has not adequately controlled intelligence activities

When you establish a powerful position, the first think you have to do is check that power and make it accountable.

We must have government, but we must watch them like a hawk.

It is our responsibility not to make charges we can't substantiate

An urgent need exists for regular and responsible Congressional scrutiny of the Central Intelligence Agency. Such scrutiny is essential… Our form of government…is based on a system of checks and balances. If this system gets seriously out of balance at any point the whole system is jeopardized and the way is opened for the growth of tyranny…CIA is freed from practically every ordinary form of Congressional check. I agree that an intelligence agency must maintain complete secrecy to be effective. However, there is a profound difference between an essential degree of secrecy to achieve a specific purpose and secrecy for the mere sake of secrecy.

Publicity is the soul of justice. Without publicity, all other checks are insufficient: in comparison of publicity, all other checks are of small account.

You can't fire anybody in Government; everyone blames the system. Look what is happening in NASA. Now we have to truck out these 200-plus audits out of the closet because we had a disaster [the Challenger], and we still can't find someone to fire.

Who is to guard the guards themselves? Quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?

Oversight was not meant to be comfortable.

The government of England is one of the wisest in Europe, because there is a body there that examines this government continually and that continually examines itself.

Counter-corruption agencies cannot make a difference unless they are independent of the government actors they are supposed to monitor, restrain, and punish.

When we hear news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

Quite as important as legislation is vigilant oversight of administration; and even more important than legislation is the instruction and guidance in political affairs which the people might receive from a body which kept all national concerns suffused in a broad daylight of discussion .... The informing functions of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function. The argument is not only that a discussed and interrogated administration is the only pure and efficient administration, but, more than that, that the only really self-governing people is that people which discusses and interrogates its administration.

No trusting without testing

The only way we can do oversight is if people tell the truth.

Independence sounds good in theory, but in practice, it is mutually exclusive with accountability. The more independence you give a prosecutor, the less you make that prosecutor accountable to the public and regular checks and balances.