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Alison Mckellar

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“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

tags: belief, bertrand, evidence, foolish, majority, opinion, russell

292 likes

“That millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.”
― Erich Fromm, The Sane Society

tags: mental-illness, sanity, society

389 likes

“What an ironic tragedy that an affluent, “Christian” minority in the world continues to hoard its wealth while hundreds of millions of people hover on the edge of starvation!”
― Ronald J. Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity

tags: affluence, christianity, hunger, irony, majority, minority, poverty, starvation, tragedy, wealth

11 likes

“In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, Anthropology of Morality in Melanesia and Beyond, The. Anthropology and Cultural History in Asia and the Indo-Pacific.

tags: conscience, ethics, majority

84 likes

“I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.”
― Michael Crichton