Evidence Quotes

There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.

Evidence is fact that discriminates between one theory and another. Facts do not speak for themselves. They speak for or against competing theories. Theories can be devastated by facts but they can never be proven correct by facts. What empirical verification can do is to reveal which of the competing theories currently being considered is more consistent with that which is known factually. Some other theory may come along tomorrow that is still more consistent with the facts, or explains those facts with fewer, clearer, or more manageable assumptions.

No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot

Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty.

Postmodernism, the school of 'thought' that proclaimed 'There are no truths, only interpretations' has largely played itself out in absurdity, but it has left behind a generation of academics in the humanities disabled by their distrust of the very idea of truth and their disrespect for evidence, settling for 'conversations' in which nobody is wrong and nothing can be confirmed, only asserted with whatever style you can muster.

When the facts change, one ought to change one’s opinion.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true, but many other things are believed simply because they have been asserted repeatedly and repetition has been accepted as a substitute for evidence.

An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Any coincidencce is worth noticing. You can throw it away later if it is only a coincidence.

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof

The word 'belief' is a difficult thing for me. I don't believe. I must have a reason for a certain hypothesis. Either I know a thing, and then I know it - I don't need to believe it.

What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

I have experimental evidence that time travel is not possible.

Facts are stubborn things.

The test of all knowledge is experiment.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Criticism always seemed to me a lot like police work. You look for clues, fingerprints, motives. You need to construct an airtight case.