Knowledge Validation Quotes

The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth.

There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.

Economists are evaluated on how intelligent they sound, not on a scientific measure of their knowledge of reality

When speaking of a "body of knowledge" or of "the results of research," e.g., we tacitly assign the same cognitive status to inherited knowledge and to independently acquired knowledge. To counteract this tendency a special effort is required to transform inherited knowledge into genuine knowledge by revitalizing its original discovery, and to discriminate between the genuine and the spurious elements of what claims to be inherited knowledge.

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

Why do I want to believe what I believe?... Science, to put it somewhat vulgarly, is a technique to keep yourself from kidding yourself.

Never, ever, compromise on science.

I don’t believe one reads to escape reality. A person reads to confirm a reality he knows is there, but which he has not experienced.

He who has a true idea, knows at that same time that he has a true idea, nor can he doubt concerning the truth of the thing.

When I'm done with a book, I always give it to someone with expertise in the topic and tell them to flag all of my stupid mistakes.

The fact that people have religious experiences is interesting from the psychological point of view, but it does not in any way imply that there is such a thing as religious knowledge...Unless he can formulate this 'knowledge' in propositions that are empirically verifiable, we may be sure that he is deceiving himself.

Knowledge, or verbal facility, is no proof that you know what you're talking about.

It's nice to be thought of as attractive and all of that. On the other hand, it curtails you somewhat, too. They won't let me read for 'West Wing,' just to play, you know, a normal person. Or 'ER,' to play a doctor - the things I'm actually good at. I mean, I'm pretty good on foreign policy - they won't even let me come read for that.

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. By what conduit do we know what we know?

Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree: you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say this we know.

No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge

No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow.

The great sickness and the grievous evil consist in this: that all the things that man finds written in books, he presumes to think of as true-and all the more so if the books are old.

Namely, we have no right to believe a thing true because everybody says so unless there are good grounds for believing that some one person at least has the means of knowing what is true, and is speaking the truth so far as he knows it.

The ideas of theologians are refuted by their adversaries, the ideas of scientists are refuted by their followers.

Whenever truth stands in the mind unaccompanied by the evidence upon which it depends, it cannot properly be said to be apprehended at all.

Even if individual researchers are prone to falling in love with their own theories, the broader process of peer review and institutionalized skepticism are designed to ensure that, eventually, the best ideas prevail.

America is a knowledge-based society, where information counts as much as material resources. Therefore those with the power to define what qualifies as knowledge - to determine what are the accepted facts - wield the greatest social and political power.

No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language, and knowledge.

Truth is but approved facts.