Intellectual Dishonesty Quotes

“The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is the pretense of intelligent ignorance. The former is teachable; the latter is not.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Pride is pride not because it hates being wrong, but because it loves being wrong: To hate being wrong is to change your opinion when you are proven wrong; whereas pride, even when proven wrong, decides to go on being wrong.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“Often it is those who are most critical of a “Eurocentric” view of the world who are most Eurocentric when it comes to the evils and failings of the human race.”
― Thomas Sowell, Black Rednecks and White Liberals

“Well,” Dodgson said. “I have my own version of the scientific method. I call it focused research development. If only a few ideas are going to be good, why try to find them yourself? It’s too hard. Let other people find them—let them take the risk—let them go for the so-called glory. I’d rather wait, and develop ideas that already show promise. Take what’s good, and make it better. Or at least, make it different enough so that I can patent it. And then I own it. Then, it’s mine.”
― Michael Crichton, The Lost World

“My problem in replying to you is that Velikovsky always tosses with a two-headed coin. If ordinary orientalists like myself simply leave him aside & get on with real work, he complains of their disdain (& the public are left unprotected). If, conversely, orientalists like myself (who happen to be burdened with several thousands more facts than Velikovsky even dreams of) actually dare to stand up & expose him, then of course he snidely implies that we are some sort of closed caucus with interests at stake. It’s always “heads you lose, tails I win”…. Would you, I reflectively wonder, publish a book that insisted on the identity of Harold Wilson and Harold of Hastings, of Napoleon, Bismarck & Charlemagne, and on the role of your firm as secret HQ of the IRA, all as absolutely genuine historical fact, with “proofs” (e.g., all aunts in France are large, because tante is the feminine for tant)? Because that is, comparatively, the level of historical fraud that V. represents.”
― Kenneth A. Kitchen, The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe

“The trick to having an incorrect take almost 100% of the time is in being tethered to some socio-political narrative, and within that sphere, being tethered completely out of touch with your conscience.”
― Criss Jami