Quote: Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov born Eyzik Yudovitš Asimov (c. January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992)
American author, professor of biochemistry at Boston University, one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards, a humanist, a rationalist and an atheist

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

Quote: Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson, MPhil, PhD (born October 5, 1958)
American astrophysicist, science communicator and author

The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.

Quote: Sam Harris

Sam Harris, Ph.D. (born 1967)
American author, philosopher, neuroscientist, co-founder and CEO of
Project Reason, whose main aim is the promotion of scientific knowledge
and secular values within society, and outspoken atheist

Paul Krugman: Ignorance Is Streangth

. . . So why are [Reactionaries] so eager to trash higher education?

It’s not hard to see what’s driving Mr. Santorum’s wing of the party. His specific claim that college attendance undermines faith is, it turns out, false. But he’s right to feel that our higher education system isn’t friendly ground for current [reactionary] ideology. And it’s not just liberal-arts professors: among scientists, self-identified Democrats outnumber self-identified Republicans nine to one.

I guess Mr. Santorum would see this as evidence of a liberal conspiracy. Others might suggest that scientists find it hard to support a party in which denial of climate change has become a political litmus test, and denial of the theory of evolution is well on its way to similar status.

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Quote / Christopher Hitchens / On the Independent Mind

Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011)
English-American, Literary Critic, Journalist, Author,
Essayist, Polemicist, and Outspoken Anti-theist

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.