Related:

• Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around the sun.
  At one time this was called the Copernican theory...
• It is sad to find him belaboring the science community for its united opposition to ignorant creationists who want teachers and textbooks to give equal time to crank arguments that have advanced not a step beyond the flyblown rhetoric of Bishop Wilberforce and William Jennings Bryan.
  -- Martin Gardner, Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol....
• we must counterpose the overwhelming judgment provided by consistent observations and inferences by the thousands.
  The earth is billions of years old and its living creatures are linked by ties of evolutionary descent....
• Prevalent beliefs that knowledge can be tapped from previous incarnations or from a "universal mind" (the repository of all past wisdom and creativity) not only are implausible but also unfairly demean the stunning achievements of individual human brains.
  -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Consciousne...
• Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. There are many examples of outsiders who eventually overthrew entrenched scientific orthodoxies, but they prevailed with irrefutable data.
  More often, egregious findings that contradict well-established research turn out to be artifacts....
• The book is worth attention for only two reasons: (1) it attacks attempts to expose sham paranormal studie
  and (2) it is very well and plausibly written and so rather harder to dismiss or refute by simple jeering....
• In arguing that current theories of brain function cast suspicion on ESP
  psychokinesis, reincarnation, and so on, I am frequently challenged with the most popular of all neuro-mythologies -- the notion that we ordinarily use only 10 percent of our brains....
• I myself have dreamed up a structure intermediate between Dyson spheres and planets.
  Build a ring 93 million miles in radius -- one Earth orbit -- around the sun....