When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a
problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is,
he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is
going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount
importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and
leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of
varying degrees of certainty -- some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none
absolutely certain.
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Who was Ayn Rand? - a biography, Playboy interview, 1964
Look around you and look at history. You will see the achievements of man's mind. You will see man's unlimited potentiality for greatness, and the faculty that makes it possible. You will see that man is not a helpless monster by nature, but he becomes one when he discards that faculty: his mind.
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The Value Of Science - By Richard P. Feynman
When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty -- some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.
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The Audacity of Data - Barack Obama's surprisingly non-ideological policy shop.
The sooner Obama becomes President of the USA the better for all of us. Pragmatic, non-ideological foreign policy? Yes please.
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Einstein & Faith -- Printout -- TIME
"The fanatical atheists," Einstein wrote in a letter, "are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who--in their grudge against traditional religion as the 'opium of t
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‘I have never been happier’ says the man who won gold but lost God - Times Online
Jonathan Edwards: “Once you start asking yourself questions like, ‘How do I really know there is a God?’ you are already on the path to unbelief... When you think about it rationally, it does seem incredibly improbable that there is a God.”
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FilmChat: Philip Pullman -- the extended e-mail interview
I don't expect Christians to see God as a metaphor, but that's what he is. Perhaps it might be clearer to call him a character in fiction, and a very interesting one too: one of the greatest and most complex villains of all - savage, petty, boastful and j
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A List Apart: Understanding Web Design
Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.
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Charles Darwin: Religious belief
By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is suppoted, -- that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become, -- that the me
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How to Do Philosophy
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I Think You're Fat - Radical Honesty
No topic is off-limits. "I've slept with more than five hundred women and about a half dozen men," he tells me. "I've had a whole bunch of threesomes" -- one of which involved a hermaphrodite prostitute equipped with dual organs.
What about animals?
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Heretical Thoughts about Science and Society by Freeman Dyson
The public does not have much use for a scientist who says, “Sorry, but we don’t know”. The public prefers to listen to scientists who give confident answers to questions and make confident predictions of what will happen as a result of human activi
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Stuff
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The new age of ignorance | Review | The Observer
There have been a lot of convincing studies recently about the loss of productivity in the Western male. It may be that entertainment culture now is so engaging that it keeps people satisfied.
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26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
List of cognitive biases and links to Wikipedia articles.
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Independent Online Edition > Matthieu Ricard: Meet Mr Happy
Ricard is a highly unusual figure in that - by contrast with the unquestioning, some would say credulous, nature of many believers - he has brought the scientific rigour of his early life to his faith: first in the form of his translations of texts from T
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Anxiety Culture
Anxiety Culture is a satirical webzine containing a wealth of gimmicks, ideas and images for navigating the Anxiety Age. We peek at the paranoias hidden behind the respectable suburban front door...
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