
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
quote by Arthur Conan Doyle

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Facts do not speak for themselves. They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities.
quote by Thomas Sowell

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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We tend to mislead
We tend to see
That data suit theories.
We tend to see
That reasons suit actions.
Tendencies are
To make up the short coming.
04.03.2007
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

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Generally the theories we believe we call facts, and the facts we disbelieve we call theories.
quote by Felix Cohen

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It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
quote by Arthur Conan Doyle

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ice-cold Refusal
Act of God Graham Phillips - a very academic
account, the first 200 pages are bone dry but
I forged on, set on reaching wonderful theories
about cataclysm & history, nearly did not make
it, getting buried under a dearth of facts, names,
funerary rites, conventional Egyptology
Ice-cold refusal to consider Graham Hancock
theories about pyramid age determined by
precipitation marks - all irrelevant, I'm only
guided by a need for the enthusiasm of the
inspired researcher but the first 200 pages
fail to touch the reader
After suffocating in a desert of words, names,
facts and conjectures, the author promises to
prove that the Egyptian events were the effect
of ancient cataclysms, I hope to reach this part
of the academic dissertation before losing my
mind in boring reams of facts
It's clear why maverick Zechariah Sitchin
is so much more interesting to read, especially
when one has no use for the ancient lore
in designing a dreamy life...
Act of God - Graham Phillips, Pan Books,1988
poem by Margaret Alice Second

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As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.
quote by William James

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Theories that go counter to the facts of human nature are foredoomed.
quote by Edith Hamilton

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There's no such thing as 'facts of life'. Only standing theories that haven't been disproved as of yet.
quote by Simon Travaglia

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The facts will eventually test all our theories, and they form, after all, the only impartial jury to which we can appeal.
quote by Louis Agassiz

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No religious position is loyally served by refusing to consider annoying theories which may well turn out to be facts.
quote by Norman Lamm

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We do not talk - we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests.
quote by Henry Miller

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I am more fond of achieving than striving. My theories must prove to be facts or be discarded as worthless. My efforts must soon be crowned with success, or discontinued.
quote by Carolyn Wells

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There is a class, moreover, by whom all these scientific theories, and more are held as ascertained facts, and as the basis of philosophical inferences which strike at the root of theistic beliefs.

I think philosophers can do things akin to theoretical scientists, in that, having read about empirical data, they too can think of what hypotheses and theories might account for that data. So there's a continuity between philosophy and science in that way.
quote by Robert Nozick

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Indian Summer
In youth, it was a way I had
To do my best to please,
And change, with every passing lad,
To suit his theories.
But now I know the things I know,
And do the things I do;
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you!
poem by Dorothy Parker

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Crosseyed & Painless
Lost my shape-trying to act casual!
Cant stop-i might end up in the hospital
Im changing my shape-i feel like an accident
Theyre back!-to explain their experience
Isnt it weird/looks too obscure to me
Wasting away/and that was their policy
Im ready to leave-i push the fact in front of me
Facts lost-facts are never what they seem to be
Nothing there!-no information left of any kind
Lifting my head-looking for danger signs
There was a line/there was a formula
Sharp as a knife/facts cut a hole in us
There was a line/there was a forula
Sharp as a knife/facts cut a hole in us
Im still waiting...Im still waiting...Im still waiting...
Im still waiting...Im still waiting...Im still waiting...
Im still waiting...Im still waiting...
The feeling returns/whenever we close out eyes
Lifting my head/looking around inside
The island of doubt-its like the taste of medicine
Working by hindsight-got the message from the oxygen
Making a list-find the cost of opportunity
Doing it right-facts are useless in emergencies
The feeling returns/whenever we close out eyes
Lifting my head/looking around inside.
Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts dont do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them
Facts are nothing on the face of things
Facts dont stain the furniture
Facts go out and slam the door
Facts are written all over your face
Facts continue to change their shape
Im still waiting...Im still waiting...Im still waiting...
Im still waiting...Im still waiting...Im still waiting...
Im still waiting...Im still waiting...
song performed by by Talking Heads

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Our empirical criterion for a series of theories is that it should produce new facts. The idea of growth and the concept of empirical character are soldered into one.
quote by Imre Lakatos

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If faith cannot be reconciled with rational thinking, it has to be eliminated as an anachronistic remnant of earlier stages of culture and replaced by science dealing with facts and theories which are intelligible and can be validated.
quote by Erich Fromm

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The system becomes more coherent as it is further extended. The elements which we require for explaining a new class of facts are already contained in our system. In false theories, the contrary is the case.
quote by William Whewell

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