No Particular Theory May Ever

Astrologers Were Greatly Impressed, And Misled, By What They Believed To Be Confirming Evidence-so Much So That They Were Quite Unimpressed By Any Unfavorable Evidence. Moreover, By Making Their Interpretations And Prophecies Sufficiently Vague They Were Able To Explain Away Anything That Might Have Been A Refutation Of The Theory Had The Theory And The Prophecies Been More Precise. In Order To Escape Falsification They Destroyed The Testability Of Their Theory. It Is A Typical Soothsayer's Trick To Predict Things So Vaguely That The Predictions Can Hardly Fail: That They Become Irrefutable.

Why Do I Think That We, The Intellectuals, Are Able To Help? Simply Because We, The Intellectuals, Have Done The Most Terrible Harm For Thousands Of Years. Mass Murder In The Name Of An Idea, A Doctrine, A Theory, A Religion - That Is All "our" Doing, "our" Invention: The Invention Of The Intellectuals. If Only We Would Stop Setting Man Against Man - Often With The Best Intentions - Much Would Be Gained. Nobody Can Say That It Is Impossible For Us To Stop Doing This.

Ignorance Is Not A Simple Lack Of Knowledge But An Active Aversion To Knowledge, The Refusal To Know, Issuing From Cowardice, Pride, Or Laziness Of Mind.

To Give A Causal Explanation Of An Event Means To Deduce A Statement Which Describes It, Using As Premises Of The Deduction One Or More Universal Laws, Together With Certain Singular Statements, The Initial Conditions ... We Have Thus Two Different Kinds Of Statement, Both Of Which Are Necessary Ingredients Of A Complete Causal Explanation.

Contrary To The Outstanding Work Of Art, Outstanding Theory Is Susceptible To Improvements.