A Quote by Carl Sagan
If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you.
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What is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish useful ideas from the worthless ones.
If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress.
Everyone is skeptical. Only the media are not skeptical, but, then, they were also not skeptical when the administration put out the line that coordinated embassy attacks around the globe on the anniversary of 9/11 were just rowdy movie reviews. Numbers on a TV screen won't prevent millions of Americans from noticing that they're unemployed.
At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes-an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.
I think the appropriate kind of skepticism is this: you've got to be asking questions all the time, you've also got to make sure that you're doing so in the spirit of genuinely wanting to find the answers - and that also means being open. I battle with this: I know I tend to be very skeptical and as a result, I veer towards the dismissive. But being aware of the tendency, I like to challenge my own skepticism and make sure it's not just knee-jerk. You need to be skeptical towards yourself as well. When you're only skeptical outwards you've got an unbalanced skepticism.
The source of innovation is freedom. All we have - new knowledge, invention - comes from freedom. Discoveries and new knowledge come from freedom. When somebody is responsible only to himself, [has] only himself to satisfy, then you'll have invention, new thought, now product, new design, new ideas.
I wish more people would be allowed to take risks and try new things and new ideas because new ideas are what this industry desperately needs. I mean, how many shooters can you make?
Consider this 're-make' business that is taking away opportunities for new ideas and new films to happen. If the movie was made right the first time, why make it again? The only reason this is happening is it has become a safer way for the Studios.
My job is to be skeptical: skeptical of people like Edward Snowden and skeptical of the U.S. government.
Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don't conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which ones best match the facts. It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything - new ideas and established wisdom.
Cut through the ridicule and search for factual information in most of the skeptical commentary and one is usually left with nothing. This is not surprising. After all, how can one rationally object to a call for scientific examination of evidence? Be skeptical of the skeptics.
If you run out of new ideas when you are very young, then it's a problem of talent; If you run out of new ideas when you get older, it may be that there's nothing left to say, or it may be that core ideas demand repeated attention.
The life of a thinking man will probably be divided into two parts -- the first in which he desires to exterminate modern thinkers, and the second in which he desires to watch them exterminating each other. ... Suppose, for instance, there is an old story and a new skeptic who is skeptical of the story. We have only to wait a little while for a yet newer skeptic who is skeptical of the skeptic. He will probably find the old notion actually a help in his new notion. This process is an abstract truth applying to anything, apart from agreement or disagreement.
Hospitality is the key to new ideas, new friends, new possibilities. What we take into our lives changes us. Without new people and new ideas, we are imprisoned inside ourselves.
When facing the public, politicians constantly filter their ideas through a political sieve. 'How will this affect the environmentalists, labor, management?' Sometimes the sieve gets so clogged by political taboos that no new ideas pass through.
If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along.
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