Pseudo Science Quotes

[Science fiction is] that class of prose narrative treating of a situation that could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesised on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-science or pseudo-technology, whether human or extra-terrestrial in origin. It is distinguished from pure fantasy by its need to achieve verisimilitude and win the 'willing suspension of disbelief' through scientific plausibility. ~ Kingsley Amis

Every science comes with its own pseudo-science, a bizarre distortion that comes from a certain kind of mind. ~ Stanislaw Lem

In science's pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics. For evolutionary biology is a historical science, laden with history's inevitable imponderables. We evolutionary biologists cannot generate a Cretaceous Park to observe exactly what killed the dinosaurs; and, unlike "harder" scientists, we usually cannot resolve issues with a simple experiment, such as adding tube A to tube B and noting the color of the mixture. ~ Jerry A. Coyne

You cannot write an accurate history of The Holocaust without accounting for the Harvard students and professors that help make the science an acceptable world-wide movement. ~ A.E. Samaan

I submit that the traditional definition of psychiatry, which is still vogue, places it alongside such things as alchemy and astrology, and commits it to the category of pseudo-science. ~ Thomas Szasz

Climate change hype has grave real world consequences. It gets rich countries to adopt silly policies and to impose devastating eco-imperialism on poor countries. The world's rich millions can afford environmental extremism; its poor billions can't. Climate change pseudo-science about human causality has been exposed repeatedly. What's less appreciated is that there aren't more natural disasters in need of an explanation. ~ Leon Louw

JULIAN HUXLEY'S "EUGENICS MANIFESTO":
"Eugenics Manifesto" was the name given to an article supporting eugenics. The document, which appeared in Nature, September 16, 1939, was a joint statement issued by America's and Britain's most prominent biologists, and was widely referred to as the "Eugenics Manifesto." The manifesto was a response to a request from Science Service, of Washington, D.C. for a reply to the question "How could the world's population be improved most effectively genetically?" Two of the main signatories and authors were Hermann J. Muller and Julian Huxley. Julian Huxley, as this book documents, was the founding director of UNESCO from the famous Huxley family. Muller was an American geneticist, educator and Nobel laureate best known for his work on the physiological and genetic effects of radiation. Put into the context of the timeline, this document was published 15 years after "Mein Kampf" and a year after the highly publicized violence of Kristallnacht. In other words, there is no way either Muller or Huxley were unaware at the moment of publication of the historical implications of eugenic agendas. ~ A.E. Samaan

Also, try to limit beans. I know they keep you regular but they're high in carbs and have something crazy in them called an anti-nutrient, which might be one of the most awesome pseudo-science words I've ever read. ~ Charlotte Hilton Andersen

Racism watching is a puzzle solving activity and often involves debunking pseudo-science. The investigator must try to figure out what makes people believe in weird ideas. As Stieg said in an interview, 'Fifty years later, people still believe in this; the whole Neo-Nazi movement. There is absolutely no sense in this. They do it contrary to everything science tells us. Contrary to human goodness or altruism, contrary to rational thinking. And this is fascinating, why? ~ Eric Bronson

As is the case in our time with the ills of all nations, the reason lies in the lack of a reasonable religious teaching which by explaining the meaning of life would supply a supreme law for the guidance of conduct and would replace the more than dubious precepts of pseudo-religion and pseudo-science with the immoral conclusions deduced from them and commonly called 'civilization'. Your ~ Leo Tolstoy

Today's left would have us forget that the pseudo-science of eugenics was once all the rage among socialists. ~ Rand Paul

There are, and always have been, destructive pseudo-scientific notions linked to race and religion; these are the most widespread and damaging. Hopefully, educated people can succeed in shedding light into these areas of prejudice and ignorance, for as Voltaire once said: 'Men will commit atrocities as long as they believe absurdities. ~ Martin Gardner

If we consider the last forty years of research as a test of Mayer's hypothesis that physical activity induces weight loss or even inhibits weight gain, it's clear the hypothesis leads nowhere meaningful. What Mayer initially insisted had to be true, so much so that he publicly accused the "enemies of exercise" of propagating "pseudo-science," had devolved over the intervening decades into an analysis of whether the prescription of an exercise program would inhibit weight gain by three ounces each month or accelerate it by two. ~ Gary Taubes

The process of testing claims is called science. Now, If you have a claim that can't be tested thats what we call pseudo-science. The difference between pseudo-science and science is whether or not you can test it. ~ Bill Nye

The third, most important, and unfortunately most widespread justification is, at bottom, the age-old religious one just a little altered: that in public life the suppression of some for the protection of the majority cannot be avoided - so that coercion is unavoidable however desirable reliance on love alone might be in human intercourse. The only difference in this justification by pseudo-science consists in the fact that, to the question why such and such people and not others have the right to decide against whom violence may and must be used, pseudo-science now gives a different reply to that given by religion - which declared that the right to decide was valid because it was pronounced by persons possessed of divine power. 'Science' says that these decisions represent the will of the people, which under a constitutional form of government is supposed to find expression in all the decisions and actions of those who are at the helm at the moment. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

How do you react when your own government lies to you systematically about life-and-death questions? As I have noted earlier, the answer is political action in the state legislatures, and one weapon in the hands of the public is an understanding of the pseudo-science and pseudo-epidemiology represented by articles like this one. ~ Harris L Coulter

[T]he more the public is confused, the easier it falls prey to doctrines of pseudo-science which may at some future date recieve the backing of politically powerful groups [ ... ]a renaissance of German quasi-science paralleled the rise of Hitler. ~ Martin Gardner

It appears that, as is the case in our time with the ills of all nations, the reason lies in the lack of a reasonable religious teaching which by explaining the meaning of life would supply a supreme law for the guidance of conduct and would replace the more than dubious precepts of pseudo-religion and pseudo-science with the immoral conclusions deduced from them and commonly called 'civilization'. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Ancient astrology, and, to some degree,
its modern descendant, are compelling mixtures of science (or pseudo-science) and classical myth.
Jung interpreted astrology as the psychology of antiquity.
The stars and planets, he suggested, are 'archetypal images': manifestations of the collective unconscious. Jung's student, Erich Neumann, developed his ideas on archetypes, especially in relation to the archetype of the nurturing Goddess. His ideas were influential upon those who later promoted goddess worship, a central element in most (though not all) New Age practice. New Agers believe that the energy of the cosmos flows from one single source (monism), and that what we call 'god'
or 'goddess' is a principle identified with the cosmos. New Age philosophy has embraced the idea that goddess worship originated in prehistoric times, when, broadly speaking, matriarchal society preceded the patriarchal order, and people worshipped the 'Great Goddess'. ~ Helen Morales

These ministries have merged pseudo-science with religious beliefs to create, in effect, a new religion, ... Eventually they will collapse under the weight of their deceit. But as long as they survive we will have trouble winning any political battles. ~ Wayne Besen

Colleges and departments of education have developed in response to the need for preparing the tens of thousands of teachers required to staff our immense public school system. That they have a most important function to discharge is plain for all to see. But instead of seeing that their products are equipped with sound learning in the various arts and sciences, they have ignored this and have concentrated almost exclusively upon methods of education. They have erected pseudo-science called "Education," most of whose courses are made up of commonplaces expressed in pretentious jargon. ~ Richard Weaver

Since it all appeared so scientific, and we wanted to hear it, Kinsey's pseudo-science became foundational for the sexual revolution, used both in courts and classrooms to push a limitless sexual revolution that began in the 1960s and through which we are still living. This revolution will not be over until it has overthrown all sexual boundaries, which means that it will not be complete until it extinguishes all opposition, the greatest of which is Christianity. Once again, we see atheism at the root of rebellion. ~ Benjamin Wiker

Mathematics deals exclusively with the relations of concepts to each other without consideration of their relation to experience. ~ Albert Einstein

Honorable errors do not count as failures in science, but as seeds for progress in the quintessential activity of correction. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

It goes with a courageous intent to greet the universe as it really is, not to foist our emotional predispositions on it but to courageously accept what our explorations tell us. ~ Carl Sagan

One of the things I've always liked about science fiction is the way it makes you think about things, and look at things from angles you'd never have thought about before. ~ Jo Walton

There is no such thing as objectivity. We are all just interpreting signals from the universe and trying to make sense of them. Dim, shaky, weak, static-y little signals that only hint at the complexity of a universe we cannot begin to understand. ~ Bones The Doctor In The Photo

The theory of evolution also had a very great effect in alienating science from religion and creating a world in which one could go about studying the wonders of creation without ever having a sense of wonder in the religious sense of that term. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Love is a chemical reaction, but it cannot be fully understood or defined by science. And though a body cannot exist without a soul, it too cannot be fully understood or defined by science. Love is the most powerful form of energy, but science cannot decipher its elements. Yet the best cure for a sick soul is love, but even the most advanced physician cannot prescribe it as medicine. ~ Suzy Kassem

All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous. ~ Paracelsus 1493-1541

Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is. ~ Georg C. Lichtenberg

My genetics have been in my family for generations. ~ J.S. Mason

The so-called Philosophy of India is even more blowsy and senseless than the metaphysics of the West. It is at war with everything we know of the workings of the human mind, and with every sound idea formulated by mankind. If it prevailed in the whole modern world we'd still be in the Thirteenth Century; nay, we'd be back among the Egyptians of the pyramid age. Its only coherent contribution to Western thought has been theosophy-and theosophy is as idiotic as Christian Science. It has absolutely nothing to offer a civilized white man. ~ H.L. Mencken

My favorite book in life is 'A Wrinkle In Time,' which I read before high school. It was my first introduction into the meeting of science and spirit and the universe and big thoughts and all of those interesting New Age-y concepts. It made everything make sense to me and opened up my mind. ~ Mae Whitman

His body recognized her. Knew her. Needed her. Every cell. He'd never been so acutely focused on another human being. ~ Christine Feehan

Quantum mechanics - the physics of our world - requires that you hold such pedestrian complaints in abeyance. ~ Brian Greene

The Russian Federation and the United States of America, the two biggest nuclear powers in the world, but apart from nuclear-wise, we have a lot in common. We have huge territories, natural resources, technologies, science, education, and of course human capital. ~ Sergei Lavrov

Our politics and science have never mastered the fact that people need more than to understand their obligation to one another and to the earth; they need also the feeling of such obligation, and the feeling can come only within the patterns of familiarity. A nation of urban nomads, such as we have become, may simply be unable to be enough disturbed by its destruction of the ecological health of the land, because the people's dependence on the land, though it has been expounded to them over and over again in general terms, is not immediate to their feelings. ~ Wendell Berry

Science and Religion are two vividly different realms of the human mind. They work differently at the molecular level, but the purpose of both is alleviation of the mind from the darkness of ignorance. ~ Abhijit Naskar

In a few years, all great physical constants will have been approximately estimated, and that the only occupation which will be left to men of science will be to carry these measurements to another place of decimals. ~ James C. Maxwell

The process of tracing regularity in any complicated, and at first sight confused, set of appearances, is necessarily tentative; we begin by making any supposition, even a false one, to see what consequences will follow from it ; and by observing how these differ from the real phenomena, we learn what corrections to make in our assumption. ~ John Stuart Mill

My first obligation is to entertain but as far as science fiction goes, it's much easier to comment on today from another time because people then aren't focused on 'did you get the details right?' It's sort of a Trojan horse approach to ideas because it's wrapped in the future, it's wrapped in action, thriller. ~ Andrew Niccol

It's also hard for people to contend with the difficult possibility that we are simply overadvanced fungi and bacteria hurtling through a galaxy in cold, meaningless space. But just because our existence may have arisen unintentionally and without purpose doesn't preclude meaning or purpose from emerging as a result of our interaction and collaboration. Meaning may not be a precondition for humanity as much as a by-product of it. ~ Douglas Rushkoff

Let nobody be afraid of true freedom of thought. Let us be free in thought and criticism; but, with freedom, we are bound to come to the conclusion that science is not antagonistic to religion, but a help to it. ~ Lord Kelvin

My interest in science had many roots. Some came from my mother as she finished her B.A. degree studies in college while I was in my early teens. ~ Richard Smalley

The bringing up, as of a child; instruction; formation of manners. Education comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations. To give children a good education in manners, arts and science, is important; to give them a religious education is indispensable; and an immense responsibility rests on parents and guardians who neglect these duties. ~ Noah Webster

Sense About Science is much more than an innocent fact-checking service. It is a spin-off of a bizarre political network that began life as the ultra-left Revolutionary Communist Party and switched over to extreme corporate libertarianism when it launched 'Living Marxism' magazine in the late eighties. ~ Zac Goldsmith

Science works its miracles by turning its enterprise into a kind of parlor game confined to the category matter and energy. ~ Terence McKenna

Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation. ~ Richard P. Feynman

My entry into the environmental arena was through the issue that so dramatically - and destructively - demonstrates the link between science and social action: nuclear weapons. ~ Barry Commoner

Life is like a black hole. You don't know what lies ahead. You can't ever turn back. All you can do is move forward. ~ Hiroshi Yamamoto

His entire presence was like gravity, impossible to forget, possible to believe in, a theory merged into a law. ~ Shannon A. Thompson

Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art. ~ William Bernbach

There's the know. And there's the unknown. And what separates the two is the door, and that's what i wanta be. Ahh wanna be th' dooooooooorrr ... ~ Jim Morrison

There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance. ~ Albert Einstein

In some universes, all possible pasts funnel towards a single fixed ending, Ω.

It you are of millenarian bent, you might call Ω Armageddon, If you are of grammatical bent, you might call it punctuation on a cosmological scale.

If you are a philosopher in such a universe, you might call Ω inevitable. ~ Yoon Ha Lee

If you imagine the 4,500-bilion-odd years of Earth's history compressed into a normal earthly day, then life begins very early, about 4 A.M., with the rise of the first simple, single-celled organisms, but then advances no further for the next sixteen hours. Not until almost 8:30 in the evening, with the day five-sixths over, has Earth anything to show the universe but a restless skin of microbes. Then, finally, the first sea plants appear, followed twenty minutes later by the first jellyfish and the enigmatic Ediacaran fauna first seen by Reginald Sprigg in Australia. At 9:04 P.M. trilobites swim onto the scene, followed more or less immediately by the shapely creatures of the Burgess Shale. Just before 10 P.M. plants begin to pop up on the land. Soon after, with less than two hours left in the day, the first land creatures follow.

Thanks to ten minutes or so of balmy weather, by 10:24 the Earth is covered in the great carboniferous forests whose residues give us all our coal, and the first winged insects are evident. Dinosaurs plod onto the scene just before 11 P.M. and hold sway for about three-quarters of an hour. At twenty-one minutes to midnight they vanish and the age of mammals begins. Humans emerge one minute and seventeen seconds before midnight. The whole of our recorded history, on this scale, would be no more than a few seconds, a single human lifetime barely an instant. Throughout this greatly speeded-up day continents slide about and bang together a ~ Bill Bryson