Pseudoscience Quotes

• I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Science, Religion

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• Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket.

  Isaac Asimov

  Pieces, Blanket, Security

  Isaac Asimov (1987). “Past, Present, and Future”

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• It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

  Carl Sagan

  Death, Witty, Atheist

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.32, Ballantine Books

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• Pseudoscience is like a virus. At low levels, it's no big deal, but when it reaches a certain threshold it becomes sickening.

  Phil Plait

  Viruses, Levels, Lows

  "Scientist attacks alien claims on Mars" By Robert Roy Britt, www.cnn.com. March 18, 2004.

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• It is no defense of superstition and pseudoscience to say that it brings solace and comfort to people. . . . If solace and comfort are how we judge the worth of something, then consider that tobacco brings solace and comfort to smokers; alcohol brings it to drinkers; drugs of all kinds bring it to addicts; the fall of cards and the run of horses bring it to gamblers; cruelty and violence bring it to sociopaths. Judge by solace and comfort only and there is no behavior we ought to interfere with.

  Isaac Asimov

  Running, Horse, Fall

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• If we teach only the findings and products of science - no matter how useful and even inspiring they may be - without communicating its critical method, how can the average person possibly distinguish science from pseudoscience?

  Carl Sagan

  Pain, Average, May

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.44, Ballantine Books

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• I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive.

  Carl Sagan

  Song, Years, Worry

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.50, Ballantine Books

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• The method of science, as stodgy and grumpy as it may seem, is far more important than the findings of science.

  Carl Sagan

  Pain, Important, May

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.44, Ballantine Books

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• The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

  Carl Sagan

  Ignorance, Media, Sound

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.49, Ballantine Books

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• Is climate change pseudoscience? If I'm going to answer the question, the answer is: absolutely.

  Ivar Giaever

  Climate, Answers, Ifs

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• Psychiatry is a pseudoscience.... You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do...Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, you don't even -you're glib. You don't even know what Ritalin is.

  Tom Cruise

  Hilarious, Ritalin, Psychiatry

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• Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.

  Carl Sagan

  God, Spiritual, Philosophy

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.54, Ballantine Books

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• One of the reasons for its success is that science has a built-in, error-correcting machinery at its very heart. Some may consider this an overbroad characterization, but to me every time we exercise self-criticism, every time we test our ideas against the outside world, we are doing science. When we are self-indulgent and uncritical, when we confuse hopes and facts, we slide into pseudoscience and superstition.

  Carl Sagan

  Heart, Exercise, Ideas

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.51, Ballantine Books

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• I'm a fan of the planets in any combination. When I was born, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, the Sun, and the Moon were all in the sky.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Moon, Sky, Fans

  Neil Degrasse Tyson (2010). “The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist”, p.110, Prometheus Books

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• The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.

  Carl Sagan

  Light, Flames, Darkness

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.50, Ballantine Books

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• Pseudoscience describes theories that sound like science but are actually just made up, like aromatherapy or biorhythms or love.

  Craig Ferguson

  Aromatherapy, Sound, Made

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• In the way that scepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to ignore the fact that, deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the sceptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.

  Carl Sagan

  Kindness, Fear, Real

  Carl Sagan (2011). “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.298, Ballantine Books

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• "Hello" is pseudoscience. The only smart way to read it is not to believe in it, not to trust it, or to put yourself in it and imagine what's out there that you haven't been told or seen.

  Aleksandra Mir

  Smart, Believe, Way

  Source: www.believermag.com

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• Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience. Sparse and poor popularizations of science abandon ecological niches that pseudoscience promptly fills. If it were widely understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be accepted, there would be no room for pseudoscience.

  Carl Sagan

  Doe, Would Be, Adequate

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.23, Ballantine Books

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• Isaac Asimov's remark about the infantilism of pseudoscience is just as applicable to religion: 'Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold.' It is astonishing, moreover, how many people are unable to understand that 'X is comforting' does not imply 'X is true'.

  Richard Dawkins

  People, Comforting, Doe

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.20, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I believe that part of what propels science is the thirst for wonder. It's a very powerful emotion. All children feel it. In a first grade classroom everybody feels it; in a twelfth grade classroom almost nobody feels it, or at least acknowledges it. Something happens between first and twelfth grade, and it's not just puberty. Not only do the schools and the media not teach much skepticism, there is also little encouragement of this stirring sense of wonder. Science and pseudoscience both arouse that feeling. Poor popularizations of science establish an ecological niche for pseudoscience.

  Carl Sagan

  Encouragement, Children, Powerful

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• Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves.

  Carl Sagan

  Stupid, Ignorance, Science

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.50, Ballantine Books

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• At the extremes it is difficult to distinguish pseudoscience from rigid, doctrinaire religion.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Religion, Difficult

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.41, Ballantine Books

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• If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Believe, Thinking

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.32, Ballantine Books

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• The pseudoscience of astrology has no place in magick. Astrology has already died twice: once with the classical gods, and a second time after the Enlightenment. The complete failure of contemporary psychology to create anything other than a vocabulary of intellectual rubbish has encouraged astrology to resurface.

  Peter J. Carroll

  Vocabulary, Astrology, Psychology

  "Psybermagick: Advanced Ideas in Chaos Magick: Revised Edition". Book by Peter J. Carroll, 1995.

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