#theories

In the little hall leading to it was a rack holding various Socialist or radical newspapers, tracts, and pamphlets in very small print and on very bad paper. The subjects treated were technical Marxist theories. ↗

— Agnes Smedley

#hall #holding #leading #little #marxist

A wonderful area for speculative academic work is the unknowable. These days religious subjects are in disfavor, but there are still plenty of good topics. The nature of consciousness, the workings of the brain, the origin of aggression, the origin of language, the origin of life on earth, SETI and life on other worlds...this is all great stuff. Wonderful stuff. You can argue it interminably. But it can't be contradicted, because nobody knows the answer to any of these topics. ↗

— Michael Crichton

#brain #conjecture #consciousness #darwinism #evolution

Why do we love the idea that people might be secretly working together to control and organise the world? Because we don't like to face the fact that our world runs on a combination of chaos, incompetence and confusion. ↗

— Jonathan Cainer

#theories #love

Liberty of imagination should be the most precious possession of a novelist. To try voluntarily to discover the fettering dogmas of its own inspiration, is a trick worthy of humna perverseness which, after inventing an absurdity, endeavours to find for it a pedigree of distinguished ancestors... ↗

— Joseph Conrad

#imagination #literary-theories #imagination

I listen to other guitar players, yeah. It gives me new concepts and shows me where the instrument is going for the future and it is going some places. There are some musicians who are really putting out a good vibe with new theories. I try and keep up. ↗

— George Benson

#future #gives #going #good #guitar

Our best theories are not only truer than common sense, they make more sense than common sense. ↗

— David Deutsch

#common #common sense #make #more #only

Today's preoccupation with physical theories of everything takes a wrong turn from the purpose of science - to question all things relentlessly. Modern physics has become like Swift's kingdom of Laputa, flying absurdly on an island above the earth and indifferent to what is beneath. ↗

— Robert Lanza

#absurdly #all things #become #beneath #earth

All my instincts are one way, and all the facts are the other, and I much fear that British juries have not yet attained that pitch of intelligence when they will give the preference to my theories over Lestrade's facts. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#criminal-justice #detectives #evidence #facts #insight

On a group of theories one can found a school; but on a group of values one can found a culture, a civilization, a new way of living together among men. ↗

— Ignazio Silone

#civilization #culture #found #group #living

Mere lack of evidence, of course, is no reason to denounce a theory. Look at intelligent design. The fact that it is bollocks hasn’t stopped a good many people from believing in it. Darwinism itself is only supported by tons of evidence, which is a clear indication that Darwin didn’t write his books himself. ↗

— Eric Idle

#darwinism #evidence #intelligent-design #science #theories