Ignoring Evidence Quotes

A man sees what he wants to see, And disregards the rest.

When people get their mind made up about something, then it's: 'Don't bother me with facts.' They've got their minds made up and dismiss you out of hand. Some people don't even give you a fair hearing.

The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.

To the fantastic mental illness of Rationalism, hard facts are regrettable things, and to talk about them is to create them.

I think if somebody is so set in their ways about what they feel about something - and you get this a lot in academia, of course, and also different sorts of journalism too - you're going to sweep under the carpet the facts that don't suit your thesis. And I think that happens quite a lot in the courtroom, for instance.

Given a choice between their worldview and the facts, it's always interesting how many people toss the facts.

The choice to 'do nothing' in response to the mounting evidence is actually a choice to continue and even accelerate the reckless environmental destruction that is creating the catastrophe at hand.

She always says, my lord, that facts are like cows. If you look them in the face hard enough they generally run away.

If you assume away most or all of the questions or difficulties, you can persuade yourself of just about anything.

People will tell us that without the consolations of religion they would be intolerably unhappy. So far as this is true, it is a coward's argument. Nobody but a coward would consciously choose to live in a fool's paradise. When a man suspects his wife of infidelity, he is not thought the better of for shutting his eyes to the evidence. And I cannot see why ignoring evidence should be contemptible in one case and admirable in the other.

We want the facts to fit the preconceptions. When they don't it is easier to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions.

The main problem was that the senior administration officials have what I call faith-based intelligence. They knew what they wanted the intelligence to show. They were really blind and deaf to any kind of countervailing information the intelligence community would produce.

It's so funny because no matter what you say, fans only read and hear what they want.

You've got people who are looking at DNA evidence and other evidence like that and they're ignoring it.

When your worldview is challenged, you'd be surprised how quickly you can find a way to dismiss reality.

The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of changing their views to fit the facts, they try to change the facts to fit their views.

It is impossible not to envy the man who can dismiss reason, although we know how it must turn out at last.