On Beliefs (1970-1979)

"Implication is thus the very texture of our web of belief, and logic is the theory that traces it." (Willard v O Quine, "The Web of Belief", 1970)

"Models are to be used, but not to be believed." (Henri Theil,"Principles of Econometrics", 1971)

"Some facts are so incredible that they are believed at once, for no one could possibly have imagined them." (Arthur C Clarke, "The Lost Worlds of 2001", 1972)

"In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limit. […] In the province of connected minds, what the network believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the network's mind there are no limits."(John C Lilly, "The Human Biocomputer", 1974)

"Meanwhile, for those who are not aware of it, it is necessary to mention that in the conception we follow and sustain here only subjective probabilities exist - i.e. the degree of belief in the occurrence of an event attributed by a given person at a given instant and with a given set of in information. This is in contrast to other conceptions which limit themselves to special types of cases in which they attribute meaning to 'objective probabilities' (for instance, cases of symmetry as for dice etc., 'statistical' cases of 'repeatable' events, etc.)." (Bruno de Finetti, "Theory of Probability", 1974)

"Probability, too, if regarded as something endowed with some kind of objective existence, is no less a misleading misconception, an illusory attempt to exteriorize or materialize our true probabilistic beliefs." (Bruno de Finetti, "Theory of Probability", 1974)

"If physics leads us today to a world view which is essentially mystical, it returns, in a way, to its beginning, 2,500 years ago. […] Eastern thought and, more generally, mystical thought provide a consistent and relevant philosophical background to the theories of contemporary science; a conception of the world in which scientific discoveries can be in perfect harmony with spiritual aims and religious beliefs. The two basic themes of this conception are the unity and interrelation of all phenomena and the intrinsically dynamic nature of the universe. The further we penetrate into the submicroscopic world, the more we shall realize how the modern physicist, like the Eastern mystic, has come to see the world as a system of inseparable, interacting and ever-moving components with the observer being an integral part of this system." (Fritjof Capra, "The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism", 1975)

"I find it more difficult, but also much more fun, to get the right answer by indirect reasoning and before all the evidence is in. It’s what a theoretician does in science. But the conclusions drawn in this way are obviously more risky than those drawn by direct measurement, and most scientists withhold judgment until there is more direct evidence available. The principal function of such detective work - apart from entertaining the theoretician - is probably to so annoy and enrage the observationalists that they are forced, in a fury of disbelief, to perform the critical measurements." (Carl Sagan, "The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective", 1975)

"All proofs inevitably lead to propositions which have no proof! All things are known because we want to believe in them." (Frank Herbert, "Children of Dune", 1976)

"People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence. They are far too ready to dismiss it and to build arcane structures of extremely rickety substance in order to avoid it. I, on the other hand, see coincidence everywhere as an inevitable consequence of the laws of probability, according to which having no unusual coincidence is far more unusual than any coincidence could possibly be." (Isaac Asimov, "The Planet That Wasn't", 1976)

"In science we always know much less than we believe we do." (Erwin Chargaff, "Uncertainties Great, Is the Gain Worth the Risk?", Chemical and Engineering News, 1977)

"The so-called exact sciences often are not as exact as is commonly believed. How often they infer the existence of a hat from the emergence of a rabbit!" (Erwin Chargaff, "Voices in the Labyrinth: Nature, Man and Science", 1977)

"Many people believe that reasoning, and therefore science, is a different activity from imagining. But this is a fallacy […] Reasoning is constructed with movable images just as certainly as poetry is." (Jacob Bronowski, "Visionary Eye", 1978)