A Quote by Elliott Sober

Earlier attempts to show that simpler theories always have higher prior probabilities have failed, but there is a restricted circumstance in which the claim is right.

Elliott Sober

Quote Topics

Always Attempts Circumstance Claim Earlier Failed Higher Prior Restricted Right Show Simpler Theories Which

Quote Author

Elliott Sober
Philosopher
Born: June 6, 1948

How thoroughly it is ingrained in mathematical science that every real advance goes hand in hand with the invention of sharper tools and simpler methods which, at the same time, assist in understanding earlier theories and in casting aside some more complicated developments.

David Hilbert

True success is always the last of a string of failed attempts to get it right.

Walter Inglis Anderson

Theories cannot claim to be indestructible. They are only the plough which the ploughman uses to draw his furrow and which he has every right to discard for another one, of improved design, after the harvest.

Paul Sabatier

The existence of common features in different forms of life indicates some relationship between the different organisms, and according to the concept of evolution, these relations stem from the circumstance that the higher organisms, in the course of millions of years, have gradually evolved from simpler ones.

Hans Adolf Krebs

Success goes to those who dare to dream. And sometimes you have to take a little "scary action," as well. - Joe Vitale True success is always the last of a string of failed attempts to get it right.

Walter Inglis Anderson

One influential philosophical position about the use of probability in science holds that probabilities are objective only if they are based on micro-physics; all other probabilities should be interpreted subjectively, as merely revealing our ignorance about physical details. I have argued against this position, contending that the objectivity of micro-physical probabilities entails the objectivity of macro-probabilities.

Elliott Sober

The first right of every human being is the right of self-defense. Without that right, all other rights are meaningless. The right of self-defense is not something the government bestows upon its citizens. It is an inalienable right, older than the Constitution itself. It existed prior to government and prior to the social contract of our Constitution.

Larry Craig

Property is the foundation of every right we have, including the right to be free. Every legal claim, after all, is a claim to something-either a defensive claim to keep what one is holding or an offensive claim to something someone else is holding.

Roger Pilon

Contrary to what professional economists will typically tell you, economics is not a science. All economic theories have underlying political and ethical assumptions, which make it impossible to prove them right or wrong in the way we can with theories in physics or chemistry.

Ha-Joon Chang

Later scientific theories are better than earlier ones for solving puzzles in the often quite different environments to which they are applied. That is not a relativist's position, and it displays the sense in which I am a convinced believer in scientific progress.

Thomas Kuhn

Great cycles of history began with vigorous cultures awakening to the needs of children, but collapsing with frayed family ties. Have we failed to learn lessons which Ancient China, Greece and Rome learned too late - about day care and death houses for old folks? Do we without protest accept accelerating preschool and nursing home cultures which warn ominously that the earlier you institutionalize your child, the earlier he will institutionalize you!

Raymond S. Moore

The dynamic, creative present, however conditioned and restricted by the effects of prior presents, possesses genuine initiative.

Corliss Lamont

The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.

Wade Davis

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.