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"You all know the argument from design: everything in the world is made just so that we can manage to live in the world, and if the world was ever so little different, we could not manage to live in it. That is the argument from design. It sometimes takes a rather curious form; for instance, it is argued that rabbits have white tails in order to be easy to shoot. I do not know how rabbits would view that application."
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Exlpore more Reasoning quotes
"Success-minded people know that nothing is without a reason."
"Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have."
"Facts are always required to draw conclusions and make serious decisions."
"Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it."
"Reason is up to these demands because it is an open-ended combinatorial system, an engine for generating an unlimited number of new ideas. Once it is programmed with a basic self-interest and an ability to communicate with others, its own logic will impel it, in the fullness of time, to respect the interests of ever-increasing numbers of others. It is reason too that can always take note of the shortcomings of previous exercises of reasoning, and update and improve itself in response. And if you detect a flaw in this argument, it is reason that allows you to point it out and defend an alternative."
"The mechanic, when a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of dropping on his knees and asking the assistance of some divine power. He knows there is a reason. He knows that something is too large or too small; that there is something wrong with his machine; and he goes to work and he makes it larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel will turn."
"He who thinks and thinks for himself, will always have a claim to thanks; it is no matter whether it be right or wrong, so as it be explicit. If it is right, it will serve as a guide to direct; if wrong, as a beacon to warn."
"An overly complex explanation began with an unsophisticated assumption."
"You all know the argument from design: everything in the world is made just so that we can manage to live in the world, and if the world was ever so little different, we could not manage to live in it. That is the argument from design. It sometimes takes a rather curious form; for instance, it is argued that rabbits have white tails in order to be easy to shoot. I do not know how rabbits would view that application."
Explore more quotes by Bertrand Russell
"Cynicism such as one finds very frequently among the most highly educated young men and women of the West results from the combination of comfort and powerlessness."
"It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this."
"The whole conception of 'sin' is one which I find very puzzling, doubtless owing to my sinful nature."
"Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives."
"Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic."
"Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?"
"Grammar and ordinary language are bad guides to metaphysics. A great book might be written showing the influence of syntax on philosophy."
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