#skeptic

On average, people should be more skeptical when they see numbers. They should be more willing to play around with the data themselves. ↗

— Nate Silver

#average #data #more #numbers #people

Well, I had a small degree, that little infection of skepticism about America which resides in the minds of even America's closest friends. That America can't be quite as good as it says it is. And why does it need so relentlessly to keep saying how good it is? ↗

— Robert MacNeil

#america #closest #closest friends #degree #does

Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end to divine things. ↗

— Hippocrates

#religion #science #skepticism #men

Am I a liar in your eyes?" he asked passionately. "Little skeptic, you shall be convinced. What love have I for Miss Ingram? None: and that you know. What love has she for me? None: as I have taken pains to prove; I caused a rumor to reach her that my fortune was not a third of what was supposed, and after that I presented myself to see the result; it was coldness both from her and her mother. I would not-I could not-marry Miss Ingram. You-you strange-you almost unearthly thing!-I love as my own flesh. You-poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are-I entreat to accept me as a husband. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#obscure #skeptic #love

You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#skepticism #science

What do you think science is? There's nothing magical about science. It is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. Which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic? ↗

— Steven Novella

#science #science-vs-religion #skeptics-guide-to-the-universe #nature

Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. ↗

— Voltaire

#atheism #atrocities #barbarity #injustice #religion

I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything... ↗

— Thomas Henry Huxley

#skepticism #thinking #skepticism

Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy. ↗

— Napoleon Bonaparte

#philosophy #skepticism #virtue #well

I always got a bit pissed off with those broadsheet sceptics who make their living being passionately angry about homeopathy, God, synchronicity or whatever, because it's as if they can't get past their emotions, and in their rage they become as faith-driven as the beliefs they criticise. I always said they give scientists a bad name. After all, science has to be about asking unthinkable questions, not closing down debate. ↗

— Scarlett Thomas

#religion #scepticism #sceptics #skepticism #skeptics