“In the end theologians are jealous of science, for they are aware that it has greater authority than do their own ways of finding “truth”: dogma, authority, and revelation. Science does find truth, faith does not.”
" William Lane Craig defends his ridiculous claim that animals don’t suffer http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/william-lane-craig-defends-his-ridiculous-claim-that-animals-dont-suffer/" February 9, 2013
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Jerry Coyne 154
American biologist 1949Related quotes
" Atheism grows on campus http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/religion-dispatches-on-atheism/" February 10, 2013
“They must find it hard to take Truth for authority who have so long mistaken Authority for Truth.”
A Retort, from Gerald Massey's Lectures c.1900; often cited as They must find it difficult, those who have taken authority as truth, rather than truth as authority.
Based on a quote of Lucretia Mott, "… my convictions led me to adhere to the sufficiency of the light within us, resting on truth as authority, rather than “taking authority for truth.”", quoted in " Eminent women of the age http://books.google.de/books?id=gGFEDpWYWpwC&pg=PA375" By James Parton et. al., (S.M. Betts & Company, 1868, p375).
" Do both science and faith produce truth? http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/do-both-science-and-faith-produce-truth/" August 11, 2012
Experience and Nature (1925)
The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1977) XXII
Conclusion : The Moral of this Examination
A Perplexed Philosopher (1892)
Context: Stepping out of their proper sphere and arrogating to themselves an authority to which they have no claim, professed teachers of spiritual truths long presumed to deny the truths of the natural sciences. But now professed teachers of the natural sciences, stepping in turn out of their proper sphere and arrogating to themselves an authority to which they have no claim, presume to deny spiritual truths. And there are many, who having discarded an authority often perverted by the influence of dominant wrong, have in its place accepted another authority which in its blank materialism affords as efficient a means for stilling conscience and defending selfish greed as any perversion of religious truth.
Mr. Spencer is the foremost representative of this authority. Widely regarded as the scientific philosopher; eulogized by his admirers as the greatest of all philosophers — as the man who has cleared and illuminated the field of philosophy by bringing into it the exact methods of science — he carries to the common mind the weight of the marvelous scientific achievements of our time as applied to the most momentous of problems. The effect is to impress it with a vague belief that modern science has proved the idea of God to be an ignorant superstition and the hope of a future life a vain delusion.
Of mathematics — as quoted in Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty (1980) by Morris Kline, p. 99.
Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter VIII : Concluding Remarks, The Noxious Influence of Authority, p. 220.
Context: To me it is far more pleasant to agree than to differ; but it is impossible that one who has any regard for truth can long avoid protesting against doctrines which seem to him to be erroneous. There is ever a tendency of the most hurtful kind to allow opinions to crystallise into creeds. Especially does this tendency manifest itself when some eminent author, enjoying power of clear and comprehensive exposition, becomes recognised as an authority. His works may perhaps be the best which are extant upon the subject in question; they may combine more truth with less error than we can elsewhere meet. But "to err is human," and the best works should ever be open to criticism. If, instead of welcoming inquiry and criticism, the admirers of a great author accept his writings as authoritative, both in their excellences and in their defects, the most serious injury is done to truth. In matters of philosophy and science authority has ever been the great opponent of truth. A despotic calm is usually the triumph of error. In the republic of the sciences sedition and even anarchy are beneficial in the long run to the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
Ricardo Galvão. Ousted Head of Science Agency Criticizes Brazil’s Denial of Deforestation Data, 2019-08-20, 10.1029/2019EO131399, Showstack, R. https://eos.org/articles/ousted-head-of-science-agency-criticizes-brazils-denial-of-deforestation-data,