{"quotes":[{"text":"Methodological naturalism is a “ground rule” of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify.","author":"Robert T. Pennock","tags":["evidence","falsifiable","materialism","methodological-naturalism","naturalism","observable","replicable","science","scientific","scientists","testable","verifiable"],"id":3906,"author_id":"Robert+T.+Pennock"},{"text":"Not only are there meaningless questions, but many of the problems with which the human intellect has tortured itself turn out to be only 'pseudo problems,' because they can be formulated only in terms of questions which are meaningless. Many of the traditional problems of philosophy, of religion, or of ethics, are of this character. Consider, for example, the problem of the freedom of the will. You maintain that you are free to take either the right- or the left-hand fork in the road. I defy you to set up a single objective criterion by which you can prove after you have made the turn that you might have made the other. The problem has no meaning in the sphere of objective activity; it only relates to my personal subjective feelings while making the decision.","author":"Percy Williams Bridgman","tags":["decisions","determinism","ethics","experiment","falsifiability","falsifiable","feelings","free-will","meaning","nobel-laureate","objective","philosophy","proof","questions","religion","science","scientific","subjective"],"id":7513,"author_id":"Percy+Williams+Bridgman"},{"text":"At present, a good many men engaged in scientific pursuits, and who have signally failed in gaining recognition among their fellows, are endeavoring to make reputations among the churches by delivering weak and vapid lectures upon the 'harmony of Genesis and Geology.' Like all hypocrites, these men overstate the case to such a degree, and so turn and pervert facts and words that they succeed only in gaining the applause of other hypocrites like themselves. Among the great scientists they are regarded as generals regard sutlers who trade with both armies.Surely the time must come when the wealth of the world will not be wasted in the propagation of ignorant creeds and miraculous mistakes. The time must come when churches and cathedrals will be dedicated to the use of man; when minister and priest will deem the discoveries of the living of more importance than the errors of the dead; when the truths of Nature will outrank the 'sacred' falsehoods of the past, and when a single fact will outweigh all the miracles of Holy Writ.Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?When every church becomes a school, every cathedral a university, every clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers, then, and not until then, will the dream of poet, patriot, philanthropist and philosopher, become a real and blessed truth.","author":"Robert G. Ingersoll","tags":["applause","blessed","brave","cathedrals","church","churches","civilize","clergyman","creeds","dead","discoveries","elevate","enlighten","errors","fact","facts","failed","falsehoods","generals","genesis","geology","great","harmony","holy-writ","honest","hypocrites","ignorant","lectures","living","mankind","minister","miracles","miraculous","mistakes","money","nature","past","patriot","peers","perfert","philanthropist","philosopher","poet","priest","progress","pursuit","real","recognition","reputation","sacred","school","science","scientific","stlers","superstition","teacher","think","truth","university","use","vapid","waste","weak","wealth"],"id":14144,"author_id":"Robert+G.+Ingersoll"},{"text":"There is no place for beggary [wanting things from others] in the current era. The law of vyavasthit [scientific circumstantial evidences] is such that one who has decided never to beg, will never have situation to beg.","author":"Dada Bhagwan","tags":["beggary","current","law","scientific","situation","spiritual","spiritual"],"id":20421,"author_id":"Dada+Bhagwan"},{"text":"You can remain faultless only when you constantly remain as a nimit [instrument, one of the doer and not the whole and sole doer] and remain in the intent of being an instrument [intent that I am one of the doer of many scientific circumstantial evidences].","author":"Dada Bhagwan","tags":["constantly","instrument","scientific","spiritual","spiritual"],"id":24589,"author_id":"Dada+Bhagwan"},{"text":"From this we conclude, that, to live in harmony and peace…we must trace a line of distinction between those (assertions) that are capable of verification, and those that are not; (we must) separate by an inviolable barrier the world of fantastical beings from the world of realities.","author":"Constantin-François Volney","tags":["enlightenment-principles","fictional","harmony","peace","reality","scientific","separation-of-church-and-state","thomas-jefferson","thomas-jefferson-translation","verification"],"id":26122,"author_id":"Constantin-Fran%C3%A7ois+Volney"},{"text":"The first revolution is to transform the status of evaluation from untouchable to respectable , I.E., from the days a century ago when the value-free doctrine held that there could be no place for the serious treatment of evaluation within the sciences (or in the company of other respectable disciplines like history, jurisprudence, mathematics, etc.) to the days when even the National Academy of Sciences is doing evaluations at the request of Congress without protest from leading scientific and other professional organizations, and everyone will have good reasons for this acceptance.","author":"Michael Scriven","tags":["congress","doctrine","evaluation","national-academy-of-sciences","professional","respect","science","scientific"],"id":39595,"author_id":"Michael+Scriven"},{"text":"God is not an alternative to science as an explanation, he is not to be understood merely as a God of the gaps, he is the ground of all explanation: it is his existence which gives rise to the very possibility of explanation, scientific or otherwise. It is important to stress this because influential authors such as Richard Dawkins will insist on conceiving of God as an explanatory alternative to science – an idea that is nowhere to be found in theological reflection of any depth. Dawkins is therefore tilting at a windmill - dismissing a concept of God that no serious thinker believes in anyway. Such activity is not necessarily to be regarded as a mark of intellectual sophistication.","author":"John C. Lennox","tags":["alternative","dawkins","evolution","existence","explanation","god","god-of-gaps","intellectual","lennox","science","scientific"],"id":47331,"author_id":"John+C.+Lennox"},{"text":"I independently produce scientific advancements to share with everyone, and that is over seven billion people!","author":"Steven Magee","tags":["advance","advancement","advancements","all","billion","everyone","independant","independently","people","produce","scientific","scientific-discovery","scientific-inquiry","scientific-research","scientific-theory","seven","share","share","shared-experiences"],"id":54623,"author_id":"Steven+Magee"},{"text":"Every new discovery is assumed at once into the sum total of knowledge, and with that ceases in a sense to be a discovery; it dissolves into the whole and disappears, and one must have a trained scientific eye even to recognize it after that.","author":"Franz Kafka","tags":["discovery","knowledge","scientific","the-village-schoolmaster"],"id":56299,"author_id":"Franz+Kafka"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":63,"pages":7,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}