John Allen Paulos: Fact

John Allen Paulos is American mathematician. Explore interesting quotes on fact.
John Allen Paulos: 96 quotes2 likes

“Too often, this concern for the big picture is simply obscurantist and is put forward by people who prefer vagueness and mystery to (partial) answers. Vagueness is at times necessary and mystery is never in short supply, but I don’t think they’re anything to worship. Genuine science and mathematical precision are more intriguing than are the “facts” published in supermarket tabloids or a romantic innumeracy which fosters credulity, stunts skepticism, and dulls one to real imponderables.”

John Allen Paulos

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 4, “Whence Innumeracy?” (pp. 126-127)

“It’s always healthy to recognize facts.”

John Allen Paulos

Part 3 “Four Psycho-Mathematical Arguments”, Chapter 6 “Atheists, Agnostics, and “Brights”” (p. 146)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

“It’s become somewhat fashionable to say that religion and science are growing together and are no longer incompatible. This convergence is, in my opinion, illusory. In fact, I don’t believe that any attempt to combine these very disparate bodies of ideas can succeed intellectually.”

John Allen Paulos

Part 2 “Four Subjective Arguments”, Chapter 5 “The Argument from Interventions (and Miracles, Prayers, and Witnesses)” (pp. 88-89)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

“When the law’s on your side, pound the law. When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. And when neither is on your side, pound the table.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Section 3, “Lifestyle, Spin, and Soft News” Chapter 23, “Tsongkerclintkinbro Wins” (p. 106)
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

“All art, in fact, has these two aspects: its content and its frame (or setting), which sets it apart from nonart and which says of itself, “This is not an everyday sort of communication. This is unreal.””

John Allen Paulos

Source: Mathematics and Humor: A Study of the Logic of Humor (1980), Chapter 3, “Self-Reference and Paradox” (p. 53)