“The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts.”

— John Muir , book A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf

Source: A Thousand-Mile Walk To the Gulf, 1916, chapter 6: Cedar Keys, page 160
Source: A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf

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John Muir 183

Scottish-born American naturalist and author 1838–1914

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“A presumption of any fact is, properly, an inferring of that fact from other facts that are known; it is an act of reasoning; and much of human knowledge on all subjects is derived from this source.”

Charles Abbott, 1st Baron Tenterden (1762–1832) British barrister and judge, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench

King v. Burdett (1820), 1 St. Tr. (N. S.) 140.

“A presumption of equality may be contrary to present fact, and yet not contrary to a desideratum. We are not as a fact all equally fit to live, equally responsible, or equally deserving of the protection of the law: but it will hardly be doubted that it would be desirable if we were.
But further, the presumption of a desired condition is, in any group of plastic minds, a force tending to bring about the thing presumed, i. e., to create it. It aids a boy to reach maturity to treat him as if he were a little older than he is. A little older: for the presumption loses its effect if it is too wide of the actual fact. The fundamental presumptions of the law are justified on this basis and to this extent: if they are too wide of the truth to be creative, they are not justified.”

William Ernest Hocking (1873–1966) American philosopher

Source: Present Status of the Philosophy of Law and of Rights (1926), Ch. VI : Presumptive Rights, § 24, p. 63.

“We [Libyans] support the Palestinian resistance, and all the world supports this. We support their just cause, but we are against terrorism.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

The Pittsburgh Press (3 August 1986) "Gadhafi, the man the world loves to hate" by Marie Colvin (UPI)

“But the Schrödinger equation does not support this presumption. The state of superposition never collapses under Schrödinger evolution”

Ravi Gomatam (1950) Indian academic

Invited talk, delivered at the joint Indo-US Workshop on System of Systems Engineering http://www.bvinst.edu/gomatam/pub-2009-02.pdf, IIT-Kanpur, October 26-28, 2009.
Context: The Schrödinger equation, which is at the heart of quantum theory, is applicable in principle to both microscopic and macroscopic regimes. Thus, it would seem that we already have in hand a non-classical theory of macroscopic dynamics, if only we can apply the Schrödinger equation to the macroscopic realm. However, this possibility has been largely ignored in the literature because the current statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics presumes the classicality of the observed macroscopic world to start with. But the Schrödinger equation does not support this presumption. The state of superposition never collapses under Schrödinger evolution.

“In a perfect world an idea could be born, nourished, developed and made known to everyone, criticized and perfected, and put to good use without the crude fact of financial support ever entering in to the process. Seldom, if ever, in the practical world in which we live does this occur.”

Warren Weaver (1894–1978) American mathematician

Source: Science and Imagination: Selected Papers, 1967, p. 82

“But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be inhabited?…. Are we or they Lords of the World?…. And how are all things made for man?(War of the Worlds by HG Wells)”

Johannes Kepler book Harmonices Mundi

Harmonices Mundi (1618)

“Her body moved with the frankness that comes from solitary habits. But solitude is only a human presumption. Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot; every choice is a world made new for the chosen. All secrets are witnessed.”

Barbara Kingsolver book Prodigal Summer

Source: Prodigal Summer (2000).

“That the outer man is a picture of the inner, and the face an expression and revelation of the whole character, is a presumption likely enough in itself, and therefore a safe one to go on; borne out as it is by the fact that people are always anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous …. Photography … offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

Vol. 2, Ch. 29, § 377
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims

“Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist

The Development Hypothesis (1852)
Context: Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all. Like the majority of men who are born to a given belief, they demand the most rigorous proof of any adverse belief, but assume that their own needs none.

“It made me wonder if perhaps our ancestors' crimes were not in fact far more terrible than they claimed. After all, the only histories we possessed told their version of what happened, and in their accounts they were completely innocent.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Treason (1988)

“The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts.”

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John Muir 183

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