“When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.”

— Stephen Jay Gould , book An Urchin in the Storm

"The Quack Detector", p. 245
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)
Context: [A]s we discern a fine line between crank and genius, so also (and unfortunately) we must acknowledge an equally graded trajectory from crank to demagogue. When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.

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Stephen Jay Gould 274

American evolutionary biologist 1941–2002

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