209 Debate Quotes

My feeling is that Darwinism is only at best a partial solution, and an extremely dangerous partial solution. I would say, based on the little I know, Darwinism explains microevolution within species quite well. As to its broader consequence and implications, I don't think it explains individual species evolution at all well.

But when I talk to people who are Darwinists or evolutionists and say, 'Well, how did life begin' -- they're...they don't have an answer. I mean, they have an answer, but it's a BS answer. It's an answer that wouldn't make sense to a small child.

The scientific community says that if you even mention God as causes of anything scientific, you're gone.

I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me.

What's being pushed is to have Darwinism critiqued, to teach there's a controversy. Intelligent design itself does not have any content.

Argument is to me the air I breathe. Given any proposition, I cannot help believing the other side and defending it.

Which is ideology? Which not? You shall know them by their assertion of truth, their contempt for considered reflection, and their fear of debate.

In my books I might hold the mirror to my own face. If others would like to borrow the mirror, they're welcome. The books aren't there to accuse others - merely to raise issues and keep the debates alive.

No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.

The true Enlightenment thinker, the true rationalist, never wants to talk anyone into anything. No, he does not even want to convince; all the time he is aware that he may be wrong. Above all, he values the intellectual independence of others too highly to want to convince them in important matters. He would much rather invite contradiction, preferably in the form of rational and disciplined criticism. He seeks not to convince but to arouse - to challenge others to form free opinions.

In the end it is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy.

Instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.

I rise to oppose the Central American Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA, the latest expression of the disastrous trade policies of this administration which are, unfortunately, a continuation of the disastrous trade policies of previous administrations.

We should not use special budget procedures to jam through legislation to drill in the Arctic Refuge. This topic is too important to the public to address it in such a back-door manner. We should be having a full, open discussion of the issue during an energy debate.

Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists-whether through design or stupidity, I do not know-as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.

I despair of persuading people to drop the familiar and comforting tactic of dichotomy. Perhaps, instead, we might expand the framework of debates by seeking other dichotomies more appropriate than, or simply different from, the conventional divisions. All dichotomies are simplifications, but the rendition of a conflict along differing axes of several orthogonal dichotomies might provide an amplitude of proper intellectual space without forcing us to forgo our most comforting tool of thought.

I strongly reject any conceptual scheme that places our options on a line, and holds that the only alternative to a pair of extreme positions lies somewhere between them. More fruitful perspectives often require that we step off the line to a site outside the dichotomy.

Religious believers of the world, you are free to continue to debate the simple, narrow question that divides you from atheists, but you have no right, in so doing, to treat the Humanists of the world with contempt. You owe them a deep debt of gratitude, for not only have they shed much light on a naturally dark world but they have very probably helped civilize your own specific religion.

Debate is healthy and no one in this chamber - starting with me - has a monopoly on being right.

In the middle ages of Christianity opposition to the State opinions was hushed. The consequence was, Christianity became loaded with all the Romish follies. Nothing but free argument, raillery & even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.

Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour [the minimum wage in 1996] are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families do not exist.

There's probably no subject with quite so many conflictin' opinions about it as there are about food, and 'tis better to swap bubble gum with a rabid bulldog than challenge a single one o' the varyin' beliefs your average human holds about nutrition.

Great contest follows, and much learned dust Involves the combatants; each claiming truth, And truth disclaiming both.

If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind.

The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.

It were endless to dispute upon everything that is disputable.

We have arrived at an intellectual chaos.

After last night's debate, the reputation of Messieurs Lincoln and Douglas is secure.

Opposition always inflames the enthusiast, never converts him.

Whether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too little discussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our social philosophy on any theory which is debatable but has not been debated.

'Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth.'

I heard Dennis Kucinich say in a debate, 'When I'm president...' and I just wanted to stop him and say, 'Dude.'

I agree with everything you say, but I would attack to the death your right to say it.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements.

Mencius said that human nature is good. I disagree with that.

After it hath been seen how the obstinate and the ignorant of evil disposition are accustomed to dispute, it will further be shewn how disputes are wont to conclude; although others are so wary that without losing their composure, but with a sneer, a smile, a certain discreet malice, that which they have not succeeded in proving by argument - nor indeed can it be understood by themselves - nevertheless by these tricks of courteous disdain they pretend to have proven, endeavouring not only to conceal their own patently obvious ignorance but to cast it on to the back of their adversary. For they dispute not in order to find or even to seek Truth, but for victory, and to appear the more learned and strenuous upholders of a contrary opinion. Such persons should be avoided by all who have not a good breastplate of patience.

But suppose we take the noun 'truth': here is a case where the disagreements between different theorists have largely turned on whether they interpreted this as a name of a substance, of a quality, or of a relation. --Austin, Papers 73.

I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.

There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right. (pp. 26-27)

There are many difficulties impeding the rapid spread of reasonableness. One of the main difficulties is that it always takes two to make a discussion reasonable. Each of the parties must be ready to learn from the other. You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers shooting you to being convinced by you.

Facts are stupid things - stubborn things, I should say. [Laughter]

I have often been amused by our vulgar tendency to take complex issues, with solutions at neither extreme of a continuum of possibilities, and break them into dichotomies, assigning one group to one pole and the other to an opposite end, with no acknowledgment of subtleties and intermediate positions-and nearly always with moral opprobrium attached to opponents.

We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.

We are all Republicans - we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

A function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purposes when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea.

It excites world wonder in the Parliamentary countries, that we should build a chamber starting afresh, which can only seat two thirds of its members. It is difficult to explain this to those who do not know our ways. They cannot easily be made to understand why we consider that the intensity, passion, intimacy, informality, and spontaneity of our Debates constitute the personality of the House of Commons and endow it at once with its focus and strength. (1950)

The object of Parliament is to substitute argument for fisticuffs. (attributed to a House of Commons speech of 1951)

Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

'I think it is so glorious,' said the American. 'There is no such mischievous nonsense in all the world as equality. That is what father says. What men ought to want is liberty.'

If all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they still wouldn't reach a conclusion.

Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being 'pushed to an extreme'; not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case. Strange that they should imagine that they are not assuming infallibility, when they acknowledge that there should be free discussion on all subjects which can possibly be doubtful, but think that some particular principle or doctrine should be forbidden to be questioned because it is so certain, that is, because they are certain that it is certain. To call any proposition certain, while there is any one who would deny its certainty if permitted, but who is not permitted, is to assume that we ourselves, and those who agree with us, are the judges of certainty, and judges without hearing the other side. (p. 29)

I hate extremes of any kind. Communism and the National Front both seek the domination of the state over the individual. They both, I believe crush the right of the individual. To me, therefore, they are parties of a similar kind. All my life I have stood against banning Communism or other extremist organisations because, if you do that, they go underground and it gives them an excitement that they don't get if they are allowed to pursue their policies openly. We'll beat them into the ground on argument... The National Front is a Socialist Front.

'When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane, not in all things, but in religious matters. When a thoughtful and unblessed Mohammedan examines the Westminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I am spiritually insane. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic - for that is a part of his insanity and the evidence of it. He cannot prove to me that I am insane, for my mind has the same defect that afflicts his... When I look around me, I am often troubled to see how many people are mad.'

'Producing food for 6.2 billion people, adding a population of 80 million more a year, is not simple. We better develop an ever improved science and technology, including the new biotechnology, to produce the food that's needed for the world today.' In response to the fraction of the world population that could be fed if current farmland was convered to organic-only crops: 'We are 6.6 billion people now. We can only feed 4 billion. I don't see 2 billion volunteers to disappear.' In response to extreme critics: 'These are utopian that live on Cloud 9 and come into the third world and cause all kinds of confusion and negative impacts on the developing countries.'

I shall assume that your silence gives consent (XLI).

An atheist-laugh's a poor exchange For Deity offended.

When someone disagrees with you on a moral point you assume that he is one step behind in his thinking, and he assumes that he has gone one step ahead. But I take both parts, O'Hara, leapfrogging myself along the great moral issues, refuting myself and rebutting the refutation towards a truth that must be the compound of two opposite half-truths. And you never reach it because there is always something more to say.

No one is pro-abortion.

One of the myths propagated by the enemies of Israel is that there is an all-powerful Zionist conspiracy. That is a false accusation. Nevertheless, that AIPAC has been so successful in suppressing criticism has lent some credence to such false beliefs. Demolishing the wall of silence that has protected AIPAC would help lay them to rest. A debate within the Jewish community, instead of fomenting anti-Semitism, would only help diminish it. Anticipating attacks, I should like to emphasize that I do not subscribe to the myths propagated by enemies of Israel and I am not blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism predates the birth of Israel. Neither Israel's policies nor the critics of those policies should be held responsible for anti-Semitism. At the same time, I do believe that attitudes toward Israel are influenced by Israel's policies, and attitudes toward the Jewish community are influenced by the pro-Israel lobby's success in suppressing divergent views.

...the point of public relations slogans like 'Support Our Troops' is that they don't mean anything [...] that's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody is gonna be against and I suppose everybody will be for, because nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. But its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something, do you support our policy? And that's the one you're not allowed to talk about.

There you go again.

It is better to debate a question without deciding it than to decide it without debate.

The essence and foundation of House of Commons debating, is formal conversation, the set speech, the harangues addressed to constituents, or to the wider public out of doors, have never succeeded much in our small wisely built chamber.

And now let any Union man who complains of the measure, test himself by writing down in one line that he is for subduing the rebellion by force of arms; and in the next, that he is for taking these hundred and thirty thousand men from the Union side, and placing them where they would be but for the measure he condemns. If he can not face his case so stated, it is only because he can not face the truth.

Does there truly exist an insuperable contradiction between religion and science? Can religion be superseded by science? The answers to these questions have, for centuries, given rise to considerable dispute and, indeed, bitter fighting. Yet, in my own mind there can be no doubt that in both cases a dispassionate consideration can only lead to a negative answer. What complicates the solution, however, is the fact that while most people readily agree on what is meant by 'science,' they are likely to differ on the meaning of 'religion.'

Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition. Since, under present circumstances, free and unhindered discussion of these problems has come under a powerful taboo, I consider the foundation of this magazine to be an important public service.

It has been suggested, I think by the hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire (Mr. Boothby) that the most constructive suggestion he could make was to urge an early General Election and a return of a Tory Government in Britain. Why on earth should he want to prophesy what might result from a Tory Government when history has the record for him? Why read the crystal when he can read the book?

Ozzy Osbourne has his bats, and I have that darn 'convert them to Christianity' quote. Some may not like what I said, but I'm still waiting to hear a better suggestion.

I didn't want to get into a political debate with him, but my patience was running thin...My shorts were getting a little tight.

It's wrong that Senator Obama got to go through fifteen debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, numerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, 'Well, how could you say, that when you said in 2004 you didn't know how you would have voted on the resolution? You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war and you took that speech you're now running on off your website in 2004 and there's no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since?' Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen.

I do not agree with Plato, but if anything could make me do so, it would be Aristotle's arguments against him.

Let me tell you something-wait a minute. You know one thing that's wrong with this country? Everybody gets a chance to have their fair say-my budget did more to fight AIDS than any in history, and we're having to put up with this. Tell them to let me talk. If you want to give a speech-go out there and raise your own crowd. We'll be glad to listen to you. So there were those-I'll make you a deal. I'll ignore them if you will.

A couple of months after the invasion of Iraq, I was in Los Angeles and some drunk accosted me, saying, 'George Bush was right about everything he said about Iraq!' - weapons of mass destruction, the al-Qaeda connection and more. It was Christopher Hitchens, 'debating' me, and furious. His confusing our President's assertions with reality was a verbal pie he threw in the air and caught on his face.

If you are a religious apologist invited to debate Christopher Hitchens, decline.

Surely it is more interesting to argue about what the truth is, than about what some particular thinker, however great, did or did not think.

I may not be smart enough to debate you point-for-point on this, but I have the feeling about 60% of what you say is crap.

I've heard people say Jesus was a communist, who the hell cares?

Well, the jury is still out on evolution, you know.

'You pinhead. You think we would actually be sitting here and saying 'well, look at the way she was dressed?' If she were Joan McCain, stop it. You self-centered self-righteous socialist out of control dangerous man-hating bitch. Shut your mouth. We might have bought into this crap in the 1960s because too many people were doing LSD. We're not on LSD anymore -- we need to start making sense.'

We disagree so violently on almost everything that it's a real pleasure to drink with him. If nothing else, he's absolutely honest in his lunacy - and I've found, during my admittedly limited experience in political reporting, that power & honesty very rarely coincide.

When you have democracy, when you allow free debate, you get rid of fanaticism.

And when you have democracy and an open society and debate, automatically you will see the real [Islamic] scholars coming up.

You're going to watch a person suffer in agony while somebody's debating?

'I totally agree with you, except for the part about the thing.'

I knew Richard [Wright] and I loved him. [...] I was not attacking him; I was trying to clarify something for myself.

'[P]eople talk about the potential for good that can come from destroying these little embryos and how we might be able to solve the problem of juvenile diabetes. There's no indication yet that they're gonna do that, but people say that, or spinal cord injuries or such things. But I have to ask this question: In World War II, the Nazis experimented on human beings in horrible ways in the concentration camps, and I imagine, if you wanted to take the time to read about it, there would have been some discoveries there that benefited mankind.'(Dr. Nicolosi - excerpt from transcript)[1]

This is brave Bear-Garden language!

What I found most refreshing about Governor Ventura was his willingness to defend his positions and attack his interrogators. . . He's an imposing man who's not easily intimidated, and he's convinced he has the aura that will take him to higher places.

I was thinking were gonna have this debate and everybody on TV is wondering who scored the most points, who won the debate, all of us are gonna be fine (I don't know?) but will America be fine? 35 million people last year went hungry, 37 million lived in poverty, every day 47 million people live without healthcare, who will take on system that is rigged and corrupt? this is about what America needs. Our democratic party needs to show some backbone for what we know is right!

The truth is not the average of right and wrong.

As so often in Indo-Pakistani and Hindu-Muslim comparisons, the argument is reminiscent of the inequality between the contenders in the Cold War: you could demonstrate for disarmament in the West, but to demonstrate for this in the East Bloc (except if it were for unilateral disarmament by the Western 'war-mongers') would have put you in trouble.