ŷ������

“At every moment, anyone who dares to predict the future depends largely on the projection of present trends: but as the microbiologist Rene Dubos has said, "Trend is not destiny." Malthus wisely never put much rhetorical force into his predictions of future population size. He deserves neither positive nor negative credit in this area.

A word about prediction. Embarrassing experiences, coupled with Dubos's warning, have led demographers to state repeatedly that they do not make predictions: only projections �� projections of present trends. Trends may change with little warning. After two repetitions in the daily press, what begins as a projection metamorphoses into a prediction in the minds of readers. In spite of their warnings, demographers are repeatedly castigated for making predictions that don't come true.”
― Garrett Hardin, The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia

“When I say “Christianese,�� I am referring to informal, homogenous, and often vacant lingo intended to sound theologically profound. “God just laid it on my heart.�� “Our pastor really brings the Word.�� “The Bible helps us ‘do life�� together”—that kind of thing. Christianese simplifies the complex, complicates the simple, leans heavily into bumper-stickerisms, and often has the effect of making the speaker sound like they learned English from church marquees. In Christianese, you don’t merely read the Bible, you “spend time in the Word.�� You aren’t disconnecting from God, you are “backsliding.�� You aren’t sharing time and food with friends, you are “fellowshipping.�� Your donation isn’t a gift or tithe, it is a “love offering.�� You don’t have a devotional, you have “quiet time.”
― Seth Andrews, Christianity Made Me Talk Like an Idiot

“Major shifts in Earth’s climate are the norm, not the exception, in the Quaternary, which includes dozens of glacial to interglacial transitions. Earth was also significantly warmer during the Eemian, the last interglacial interval before the Holocene, which ended about 115,000 years ago. The relatively stable and moderate interglacial temperatures of the Holocene therefore stand out as an island of climate stability within a sea of extremes. If Earth’s climate system were to leave this relatively stable state, there is every reason to believe that the consequences might be catastrophic both to human societies and to non-human life as we know it. No industrial or even agricultural society has ever experienced climate shifts like those common before the Holocene. And greenhouse gas emissions and climate change are far from the only Earth system alterations that have accelerated since the 1950s.”
― Erle C. Ellis, Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction

“Before scientists began researching the Leadership LAB’s technique, few studies supported the possibility that campaigns could change voters�� views on polarized, partisan, politically controversial issues, especially not with door-to-door canvassing.
The academic literature in political science is aggressively pessimistic in this regard. In their book Get Out the Vote! , political scientists Donald Green and Alan Gerber examined more than one hundred published papers detailing attempts to influence voters�� opinions with mailouts, canvassing, phone calls, and television ads. Green and Gerber concluded it was highly unlikely any of them made any impact. Zero. In the rare instances in which a communication technique did alter people’s opinions, people tended to revert back to their original position within a few days after their social networks reasserted their influence.
Fleischer paid Donald Green a visit at Columbia University and showed him what the LAB had been up to over the last few years. After seeing some of the videos, Green was astonished.
“One day, Dave announced to me that he thought that he had had this insight,�� Green told me. “He had found what was lying behind resistance to same-sex marriage and what kinds of things could encourage a change of opinion. I, being the skeptical sort that I am, said that you really need to test it rigorously before I, or anyone else, is going to believe you.”
― David McRaney, How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion