Quotes about consensus

One of the difficulties in raising public concern over the very severe threats of global warming is that 40 percent of the US population does not see why it is a problem, since Christ is returning in a few decades. About the same percentage believe that the world was created a few thousand years ago. If science conflicts with the Bible, so much the worse for science. It would be hard to find an analogue in other societies.

Respectable opinion would never consider an assessment of the Reagan Doctrine or earlier exercises in terms of their actual human costs, and could not comprehend that such an assessment—which would yield a monstrous toll if accurately conducted on a global scale—might perhaps be a proper task in the United States. At the same level of integrity, disciplined Soviet intellectuals are horrified over real or alleged American crimes, but perceive their own only as benevolent intent gone awry, or erro

This isn't to deny that there were fierce arguments, at the time and ever since, about the causes and goals of both the Civil War and the Second World War. But 1861 and 1941 each created a common national narrative (which happened to be the victors' narrative): both wars were about the country's survival and the expansion of the freedoms on which it was founded. Nothing like this consensus has formed around September 11th.... Indeed, the decade since the attacks has destroyed the very possibilit

Most people do not really want others to have freedom of speech, they just want others to be given the freedom to say want they want to hear.

Incestuous, homogeneous fiefdoms of self-proclaimed expertise are always rank-closing and mutually self-defending, above all else.

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 bei

I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

The theory of phlogiston was an inversion of the true nature of combustion. Removing phlogiston was in reality adding oxygen, while adding phlogiston was actually removing oxygen. The theory was a total misrepresentation of reality. Phlogiston did not even exist, and yet its existence was firmly believed and the theory adhered to rigidly for nearly one hundred years throughout the eighteenth century. ... As experimentation continued the properties of phlogiston became more bizarre and contradict

Until now, human organization could only be based upon something negative which could not be conquered: SCARCITY, and something false: PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY... No wonder instead of producing stability, it produced the exact opposite.The current human organization based upon dealing with the consequences of scarcity and being considered responsible for our individual characteristics which we could never have chosen (our nature, our nurture, our “soul”, and all the choices they engender), will a

All humanity needs, is to be reminded that there has always existed a human consensus on all common human needs and desires (extremely long life in perfect health, abundance, well-being), and that now, transgressing the religious option, he has achieved the scientific option of working for all of them, and for much more.His rationality, guided by both his ambition and inspiration, will do the rest.WHATEVER RELIGION PROMISES, SCIENCE WILL DELIVER.

Historically, the coupling of president and Speaker has been a tricky one that encourages a choreography both quick-footed and wary

Leaders bring things to conclusion, not necessarily consensus.

Jousting with an obvious hoodlum couldn't hurt.

Initial uniformity can be deceiving, warns the author, because parties arrive at that state from so many different motives which will be exposed over time.

The basic project of art is always to make the world whole and comprehensible, to restore it to us in all its glory and its occasional nastiness, not through argument but through feeling, and then to close the gap between you and everything that is not you, and in this way pass from feeling to meaning. It's not something that committees can do. It's not a task achieved by groups or by movements. It's done by individuals, each person mediating in some way between a sense of history and an experie

The cognitive science's challenge is to link our consensus reality to our internal reality, but physics' challenge is to link our consensus reality to our external reality.

Life in society requires consensus as an indispensable condition. But consensus, to be productive, requires that each individual contribute independently out of of his experience and insight.

When you start to question you are part of the problem.

We seldom learn much from someone with whom we agree.

Hamas is regularly described as 'Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.' One will be hard put to find something like 'democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus'—blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable.

If there is no way to compel those who find a majority decision distasteful to go along with it, then the last thing one would want to do is to hold a vote: a public contest which someone will be seen to lose. Voting would be the most likely means to guarantee humiliations, resentments, hatreds, in the end, the destruction of communities. What is seen as an elaborate and difficult process of finding consensus is, in fact, a long process of making sure no one walks away feeling that their views h

FUCK UNITY! FUCK CONSENSUS! There was no unity or consensus during the American Revolution. We had principled leadership from a small, vocal, minority that refused to compromise on the issue of individual liberty.

This new consensus seemed so compelling that Ernst Mayr, the dean of modern Darwinians, opened the ashcan of history for a deposit of Geoffrey's ideas about anatomical unity.

In ambiguous situations, it's a good bet that the crowd will generally stick together – and be wrong.

To leave a man's ego bigger, retweet him. To leave his faculty of reasoning better, challenge his tweet.

Under the absolute sway of an individual despot the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul, and the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose superior to the attempt; but such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved.

Alexander Hamilton reflected as early as the middle of the Revolutionary War that rallying at the last minute was part of the national character of his countrymen.

All civilizations have needed a stable basis of short term value.

The Englishman, as an American observed, felt himself the best-governed citizen in the world, even when in opposition he believed the incumbents were ruining the country.

Toward the end of his book, Miller explains his need to unite science and religion: science does not explain the meaning and purpose of life. That may be, but why should we assume religion explains such things any better? Just because religion attempts to answer such questions does not mean its answers are correct. And such answers never seem to achieve any consensus. What is the meaning of life? Your answer is as good as mine--or just as bad.

If anyone does not understand you, just go for consensus. If not, do not move further, the solution is, just abandon it.

The desire to “do more in less time” is not a neutral force in our culture; it is the handmaiden of miserable experts, specialists, and leaders. Not everyone has rushed to become efficient. Something else exists on the periphery: an inefficient utopia, a culture of consensus, collectives, and do-it-yourself ethics. A place where time is not bought, sold, or leased and no clock is the final arbiter of our worth. For many people in North America, the problem is not just poverty but lack of time to

Law, rather than harnessing the passions, is increasingly pressed into their service.

Grammar, he saw, was agreement, community, consensus.

If someone asks you why you're oppressing a world and you reply with a lot of poetic crap, no. I guess there can't be a meeting of minds.

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.

Not cohabitation but consensus constitutes marriage.

A high self-esteem having artist works hard to be understood. A low self-esteem having artist works hard to be agreed with.