Fact-Based Analysis Quotes

Policy should always be rooted in unbiased science.

Fact checking Donald Trump is a really... It is kind of fun but it is ungratifying because nothing checks out.

Any time scientists disagree, it's because we have insufficient data. Then we can agree on what kind of data to get; we get the data; and the data solves the problem. Either I'm right, or you're right, or we're both wrong. And we move on. That kind of conflict resolution does not exist in politics or religion.

We're not sure that if there's chemical weapon used and who used it. We can't talk about virtual things, we have to talk about facts.

The true historian … reveres the fact rather than any theory.

I'm a rationalist and a skeptic, someone who safely separates faith from reason.

I think we have a high responsibility to base any criticisms that we have on a fair and honest statement of the facts, and that nominees should not be subjected to distortions of their record, taking things they've done out of context.

I think that we have to do our job well, investigate thoroughly and then describe very honestly what we see to the Security Council. And some of the things might please people there and other things may not please the people.

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.

It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.

Unlike the masses, intellectuals have a taste for rationality and an interest in facts.

Now, look, I - I like to look at evidence. I plead to that. I think evidence is important when you're making decisions that affect other people's lives.

You actually can be passionate about things like making rational decisions based on a thorough airing of the facts, a reasonable and informed debate, a respect for the Constitution that includes, um, knowing about it.

I know my political ideas affect what I write but I've tried to follow the facts wherever they land. Every topic I've written about begins as a question. How do police departments behave? Why do bureaucracies function the way they do? What moral intuitions do people have? How do courts make their decisions? What do blacks want from the political system? I can honestly say I didn't know the answers to those questions when I began looking into them.

Generally, TED speakers are believers in the scientific method.

Different ‘philosophies’ represent nothing but methods of evaluation, which may lead to empirical mis-evaluation if science and empirical facts are disregarded.

The lack of facts holds you back. The odds are stacked against a weak mind.

In these researches I followed the principles of the experimental method that we have established, i.e., that, in presence of a well-noted, new fact which contradicts a theory, instead of keeping the theory and abandoning the fact, I should keep and study the fact, and I hastened to give up the theory.

Arguments are made in Washington with very few facts behind them.

Here is an entirely banal idea that I think has the potential to change the world: Take evidence seriously. Taking evidence seriously does not mean privileging numbers over all other forms of knowledge - theories, narratives, images. Nor does it mean the kind of radical skepticism that questions everything to the point where no action is possible.

The really important thing is learning how to sceptically question and rely on empirical evidence.

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