Inadmissible Evidence Quotes

Exclusion [of evidence] exacts a heavy toll on both the judicial system and society at large. It almost always requires courts to ignore reliable, trustworthy evidence bearing on guilt or innocence. And its bottom-line effect, in many cases, is to suppress the truth and set the criminal loose in the community without punishment. [internal citations omitted] ~ Samuel Alito

Many modern philosophers claim that probability is relation between an hypothesis and the evidence for it. ~ Ian Hacking

Countries with more gender equality have better economic growth. Companies with more women leaders perform better. Peace agreements that include women are more durable. Parliaments with more women enact more legislation on key social issues such as health, education, anti-discrimination and child support. The evidence is clear: equality for women means progress for all, ~ Ban Ki-moon

God is undoubtedly ready to pardon whenever the sinner turns. Therefore, he does not will his death, in so far as he wills repentance. But experience shows that this will, for the repentance of those whom he invites to himself, is not such as to make him touch all their hearts. Still, it cannot be said that he acts deceitfully; for though the external word only renders, those who hear it, and do not obey it, inexcusable, it is still truly regarded as an evidence of the grace by which he reconciles men to himself. ~ John Calvin

FEAR is an acronym in the English language for 'False Evidence Appearing Real'. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

There's a growing body of evidence that meditation actually reduces cortisol and promotes better health. ~ Charles G. Jefferson

We have to judge all evidence with the same amount of scrutiny. We want truth, not confirmation of whatever our preference is. ~ Lewis N. Roe

I'm a Skeptic. And I'm a Journalist. I look up things in the library - a lot! I believe in the motto of Missouri, the 'Show-me, don't just blow me' state. I need evidence. I need demonstrations. I need show-and-tell. Even though I pray to God every once in a while, especially when I'm in trouble - which for most guys my age is every 28 days - I still think deeply about the issues and don't automatically jump to a religious or mystical answer to questions. I am, by nature, doubtful about the existence of God, and even whether He is a He or a Her. I don't believe in New Age stuff. For me, 'Past Life Regression' means not calling a girl after she gives me her phone number. Sure I own a lucky rabbit's foot, a lucky penny, a lucky 4-leaf clover and a lucky horeshoe [sic], and a pair of lucky underwear and several pairs of lucky socks that I only wash every seven days. But under it all I am a died–in-the-wool skeptic. ~ Earl Lee

We do a disservice to society if we ignore the evidence which shows that stable families tend to be associated with better outcomes for children. ~ Iain Duncan Smith

It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in numbers, has been rather carefully thought out ... The seemingly miraculous concurrence of these numerical values must remain the most compelling evidence for cosmic design. ~ Paul Davies

...for example, if Freud is wrong, as i and many others believe, where does that leave any number of novels and virtually the entire corpus of surrealism, Dada, and certain major forms of expressionism and abstraction, not to mention Richard Strauss' 'Freudian' operas such as Salome and Elektra, and the iconic novels of numerous writers such as D.H. Lawrence, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann and Virginia Woolf? It doesn't render these works less beautiful or pleasurable, necessarily, but it surely dilutes their meaning. They don't owe their entire existence to psychoanalysis. But if they are robbed of a large part of their meaning, can they retain their intellectual importance and validity? Or do they become period pieces? I stress the point because the novels, paintings and operas referred to above have helped to popularise and legitimise a certain view of human nature, one that is, all evidence to the contrary lacking, wrong. ~ Peter Watson

We do not hope for what we have. Therefore, to live in hope is to live in poverty, having nothing. And yet, if we abandon ourselves to economy of Divine Providence, we have everything we hope for. By faith we know God without seeing Him. By hope we possess God without feeling His presence. If we hope in God, by hope we already possess Him, since hope is a confidence which He creates in our souls as secret evidence that He has taken possession of us. ~ Thomas Merton

The Catholic struggle to hold the line against Protestantism brought thirty years of misery to millions of Europeans: opinions vary, but within the German lands one modern estimate is that 40 per cent of the population met an early death through the fighting or the accompanying famine and disease, and even the most cautious reassessment of the evidence comes up with a figure of 15-20 per cent. ~ Diarmaid MacCulloch

A certain group of adolescents evidence clear "druggie" behavior and attributes some time before they actually begin drug use. ~ Virgil Miller Newton

Your existence is evidence that this generation needs something that your life contains ~ Myles Munroe

Women should know the truth. They can take it; they are adults, not children. If a mother opts for formula rather than breastfeeding, there is good evidence that her baby will score lower on IQ tests and will have a higher risk of many illnesses including some cancers, diabetes, respiratory illnesses, diarrhea and ear infections. She should know that her own risk of breast, ovarian and uterine cancer will be higher, as well as her daughter's risk of breast cancer. The mother increases her own risk of diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and becoming overweight by "choosing" formula feeding. There is accumulating evidence that the risk of mental illness (alcoholism, ADHD, schizophrenia) is increased by not breastfeeding. A recent study suggested that even behaviour problems in adolescents are more likely if the child was formula fed. The longer the child is breastfed, the lower the risk both for the child and the mother. ~ Jack Newman

The principle of equity first came into evidence in Roman jurisprudence and was derived by analogy from the physical meaning of the word. ~ Herbert Read

How hard it is, sometimes, to trust the evidence of one's senses! How reluctantly the mind consents to reality. ~ Norman Douglas

It would strike me as ridiculous to want to doubt the existence of Napoleon; but if someone doubted the existence of the earth 150years ago, perhaps I should be more willing to listen, for now he is doubting our whole system of evidence. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

Belief sometimes precedes understanding; faith sometimes precedes scientific evidence. ~ Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

For when God is said by these things to try men and prove them, to see what is in their hearts and whether they will keep His commandments or no, we are not to understand, that it is for His own information, or that He may obtain evidence Himself of their sincerity (for he needs no trials for His information); but chiefly for their conviction, and to exhibit evidence to their consciences ...
So when God tempted or tried Abraham with that difficult command of offering up his son, it was not for His satisfaction, whether he feared God or no, but for Abraham's own greater satisfaction and comfort, and the more clear manifestation of the favour of God to him. ~ Jonathan Edwards

He sat down among the evidence at a barren communal desk in the basement of the station. He looked through the stack of extra fliers that my father had made up. He had memorized my face, but still he looked at them. He had come to believe that the best hope in my case might be the recent rise in development in the area. With all the land churning and changing, perhaps other clues whould be found that would provide the answer he needed.
In the bottom of the box was the bag with my jingle-bell hat. When he'd handled it to my mother, she had collasped on the rug. He still couldn't pinpoint the moment he'd fallen in love with her. I knew it was the day he'd sat in our family room while my mother drew stick figures on butcher paper and Buckley and Nate slept toe to toe on the couch. I felt sorry for him. He had tried to solve my murder and he failed. He had tried to love my mother and he had failed.
Len looked at the drawing of the cornfield that Lindsey had stolen and forced himself to acknowledge this: in his cautiousness, he had allowed a murderer to get away. He could not shake his guilt. He knew, if no one else did, that by being with my mother in the mall that day he was the one to blame for George Harvey's freedom.
He took his wallet out of his back pocket and laid down the photos of all the unsolved cases he had ever worked on. Among them were his wife's. He turned them all face-down. 'Gone,' he wrote on each one of them. He would no longer wait for a date t ~ Alice Sebold

As the medieval historian Richard Kieckhefer notes, the people of medieval Europe thought of magic as rational for two reasons: first of all, that it could actually work (that its efficacy was shown by evidence recognized within the culture as authentic) and, secondly, that its workings were governed by principles (of theology or of physics) that could be coherently articulated. ~ Michael Shermer

Micro: The tourists visited all the 'evidence of evolution' sites. 'This is how we got here,' said one. 'Well I'm a Creationist. I came by plane. ~ Anthony North

The difference between my beliefs and having a religious faith is that I am prepared to change my views in light of new evidence, but someone of a religious faith will just stick their fingers in the ears and say: 'I'm not listening, there's nothing you can say that will make me change my mind. ~ Jim Al-Khalili

Therefore, when a person refuses to come to Christ it is never just because of a lack of evidence or because of intellectual difficulties: at root, he refuses to come because he willingly ignores and rejects the drawing of God's Spirit on his heart. No one in the final analysis fails to become a Christian because of a lack of arguments; he fails to become a Christian because he loves darkness rather than light and wants nothing to do with god. ~ William Lane Craig

If you believe, the evidence is all around you. If you don't believe, no evidence can be enough. All ~ Andrew Klavan

The men with God's 'go' in them have these three characteristics-a saving experience, the evidence of supernatural power at work, and the spiritual efficacy of success in prayer. ~ Oswald Chambers

version of Kurt Wise's manifesto: 'If all the evidence in the universe turned in favour of creationism, I would be the first to admit it, and I would immediately change my mind. As things stand, however, all available evidence (and there is a vast amount of it) favours evolution. It is for this reason and this reason alone that I argue for evolution with a passion that matches the passion of those who argue against it. My passion is based on evidence. Theirs, flying in the face of evidence as it does, is truly fundamentalist.' I'm an atheist myself, but religion is here to stay. Live with it. 'You want to get rid of religion? Good luck to you! You think ~ Richard Dawkins

You show me ten men who cherish some religious doctrine or political ideology, and I'll show you nine men whose minds are utterly impervious to any factual evidence which contradicts their beliefs, and who regard the producer of such evidence as a criminal who ought to be suppressed. ~ H. Beam Piper

I promised myself as a kid that I would not become that guy. So I have my finger on the pulse of what is going on and I love relevant music today. We are talking about artists like Kendrick Lamar, School Boy Q, Absoul, that whole crew. Of course Evidence and Alchemist, those guys are my brothers and I love those guys, they have been lifelong friends but I have always sort of looked up to them artistically. ~ Shane Bunting

The idea that you are not good enough and that people will not like you is something that has been ingrained into your mind over many years. You have hundreds of experiences that you can call up as evidence of the fact that people will not like you -- and that things will not turn out well. These ideas are incredibly convincing. They compel us to hesitate, to shy away, and to avoid the situations -- and people -- that we find frightening. This sets up a reinforcing cycle, where we avoid reaching out, don't get good responses from others as a result, and then gain further evidence that we are not worthy.

In order to truly overcome your social anxiety at a deep, gut level, you must repeatedly take bold action. It is only through trying something new, and with a different perspective, that you learn to see the world and the people around you in a different light. ~ Aziz Gazipura

If they don't depend on true evidence, scientists are no better than gossips. ~ Penelope Fitzgerald

If reading becomes a bore, mental death is on the way. Children taught to read by tedious mechanical means rapidly learn to skim over the dull text without bothering to delve into its implications
which in time will make them prey to propaganda and to assertions based on scanty evidence, or none. ~ Joan Aiken

Once the ubiquity of collection was combined with the permanency of storage, all any government had to do was select a person or a group to scapegoat and go searching - as I'd gone searching through the agency's files - for evidence of a suitable crime ~ Edward Snowden

My limitations abruptly define the frighteningly negligible extent of my existence, yet my soul utterly perishes if bound by those very same limits. And does this not somehow evidence both the reality of and need for God? ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

The way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost is the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. And this gives me self-authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, even if in some historically contingent circumstances the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I do not think that controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit. ~ William Lane Craig

If you've been working on your thinking errors for only a few months so far, then you're probably still at the stage where you mostly notice the errors after the fact. Going forward, you'll find some situations in which you're able to spot a thinking error at or close to the time it occurs. For example, you might notice yourself feeling upset about something that has happened during the day and later that evening realize you've been mind reading: guessing what someone else thinks without knowing if it's actually the case.
Expect to have a mixture of these situations and those when you notice your thinking error only after you've been walking around buying into that sucker for months or even years. You might get some new information or evidence and only then realize you've been holding on to a distorted thought. ~ Alice Boyes

Already we know almost literally nothing about the Revolution and the
years before the Revolution. Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been
renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. I know, of course, that the past is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it,
even when I did the falsification myself. After the thing is done, no evidence ever remains. The only
evidence is inside my own mind, and I don't know with any certainty that any other human being shares my memories. ~ George Orwell