Perhaps the sharpest distinction between science and pseudo-science is that science has a far keener appreciation of human imperfections and fallibility than does pseudoscience (or ‘inerrant’ revelation). If we resolutely refuse to acknowledge where we are liable to fall into error, then we can confidently expect that error - even serious error, profound mistakes - will be our companion forever.

#TheDemonHauntedWorld #读书

#TheDemonHauntedWorld 看到现在都在讲破除迷信，总感觉书里的例子本身有些过时，比如 UFO 和麦田怪圈之类的…现在的人真的还信这种东西吗？现在都是电磁场和量子力学啦。也许中学的我看更合适，恍惚记得中学课本有讲麦田怪圈。中学的时候我还在接受果壳的科学启蒙，感觉现在接触到的很多科学方法（比如 false positive）都是那个时候学的…
不过这本书里讲到的概念今天依旧适用，比如迷信之所以是迷信是因为证据不足，而不是现象本身不引起科学家的兴趣，作者也很希望找到外星人。以及如果把所有不明白的现象都称为 Demon 的话，那整个世界都要 demon haunted 了。以及一种迷信倒下了，另一种又会崛起：

So urgent on the vulgar is the necessity of believing, that the fall of any system of mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction of some other mode of superstition...

不过也讲到了中世纪的猎巫，我稍微感兴趣一点。说当时教皇的训谕指出 both sexes 跟魔鬼性交，然而最后被猎的都是女巫…

Keeping an open mind is a virtue - but, as the space engineer James Oberg once said, not so open that your brains fall out.

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What sceptical thinking boils down to is the means to construct and to understand, a reasoned argument and, especially important, to recognize a fallacious or fraudulent argument. The question is not whether we like
the conclusion that emerges out of a train of reasoning, but whether the conclusion follows from the premises or starting point and whether that premise is true.

Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in thi future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there ar no authorities; at most, there are experts.

学到一种逻辑谬误：special pleading（片面辩护），就是说论证的时候故意忽略掉不利于自己观点的方面，或者指明某个东西是特例但又不说为什么是特例。主要是维基里这几个例子太好笑了​​：

• 為了節省開支，員工出差只准買最便宜的機票，但我是老闆，所以我可以買最好的。
• 我國國情不同，因此西式民主暫時不適合我國。
• 女生該注重外表，應該常保自己的外表乾乾淨淨的，應該留長頭髮但不該有體毛，而且皮膚要白、身材要瘦、身上不能有痘子或疤痕；不過男生不必注重外表。
• 我們應該平等對待所有族群的人，但韓國人很賤，因此韓國人除外。

Observational selection, also called the enumeration of favourable circumstances, or as the philosopher Francis Bacon described it, counting the hits and forgetting the misses (e.g., a state boasts of the Presidents it has produced, but is silent on its serial killers).

唔，感觉这应该是我最容易犯的一种逻辑谬误…

weasel words, […] Presidents […] may therefore be tempted to arrange wars while waving the flag and calling the wars something else - ‘police actions’, ‘armed incursions’, ‘protective reaction strikes’, ‘pacification’,‘safeguarding American interests’, and a wide variety of ‘operations’, such as ‘Operation Just Cause’. Euphemisms for war are one of a broad class of reinventions of language for political purposes. Talleyrand said, ‘An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public’.

惯用伎俩了，原来叫 weasel words…刚好前段时间在#明亮的对话 里也读到含糊用词 https://rhabarberbarbara.bar/@unagi/107911355987180825

Tobacco is addictive; by many criteria more so than heroin and cocaine. […] More people have died of tobacco than in all of World War II. According to the World Health Organization, smoking kills three million people every year worldwide. This will rise to ten million annual deaths by 2020, in part because of a massive advertising campaign to portray smoking as advanced and fashionable to young women in the developing world.

2020 已经过了​​看了下现在的数据，貌似是一年 8 million？今天走在路上还有个人问我有没有烟…

the Harvest Moon Festival is an important holiday in traditional Chinese communities in America. In the week preceding the festival, the death rate in the community is found to fall by 35 per cent. In the following week the death rate jumps by 35 per cent. Control groups of non-Chinese show no such effect. […] On more detailed study, it turned out that the fluctuations in death rate occurred exclusively among women 75 years old or older. The Harvest Moon Festival is presided over by the oldest women in the households. They were able to stave off death for a week or two to perform their ceremonial responsibilities.

？？这就是责任心吗…

Being human, scientists also sometimes engage in observational selection: they like to remember those cases when they’ve been right and forget when they’ve been wrong. But in many instances, what is ‘wrong’ is partly right, or stimulates others to find out what’s right.

if we offer too much silent assent about mysticism and superstition - even when it seems to be doing a little good - we abet a general climate in which scepticism is considered impolite, science tiresome, and rigorous thinking somehow stuffy and inappropriate. Figuring out a prudent balance takes wisdom.

There are perhaps ten times more astrologers than astronomers in the United States. In France there are more astrologers than Roman Catholic clergy.

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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, and the most ruthlessly sceptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new.

An ancient Chinese proverb advises, ‘Better to be too credulous than too sceptical’, but this is from an extremely conservative society in which stability was much more prized than freedom and where the rulers had a powerful vested interest in not being challenged. Most scientists, I believe, would say, ‘Better to be too sceptical than too credulous’.

这是哪句谚语啊​​每次在外文书里看见中国谚语我都对不上号，想了想感觉我知道的最接近的是“宁可信其有 不可信其无”？但英文翻译成这样感觉跟作者批判的完全就不是一回事儿了？不知道是不是别的谚语…