“Don’t you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don’t you believe in telepathy? – in ancient astronauts? – in the Bermuda triangle? – in life after death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out “Don’t you believe in anything?”
“Yes,” I said. “I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”
Isaac Asimov, The Roving Mind (1997), 43
Via McGee’s Musings, hat tip to Estebán.
3 responses so far ↓
malglam // October 12, 2009 at 11:24 |
Buenísimo.
Esteban // October 16, 2009 at 05:39 |
Esto ya me sonaba, pero sigue siendo igual de cierto. En el frontispicio de nuestro templo de sabiduría.
Por cierto, más poético pero mañana voy a ver a Aute en Granada, que canta aquello de: “que no, que no, que el pensamiento no puede tomar asiento, que el pensamiento es estar siempre de paso.”
PabloElFlamenco // November 2, 2009 at 14:09 |
I agree totally. It seems to be some kind of psychological thing, -something- that there are people who appear to constantly insist on “(com)plots” to explain certain phenomena. “Twin towers was a CIA plot”, “politicians are only in it for the money”, “it’s the French/the English/the Americans/…the Jews…the Arabs…the Chinese… done it”, etc.