Dave > Dave's Quotes

“I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.”
― Michael Crichton

“Ellie said, "Isn't it a little warm for black?"

You're extremely pretty, Dr. Sattler," he said. "I could look at your legs all day. But no, as a matter of fact, black is an excellent color for heat. If you remember your black-body radiation, black is actually best in heat. Efficient radiation. In any case, I wear only two colors, black and gray."

Ellie was staring at him, her mouth open. "These colors are appropriate for any occasion," Malcolm continued, and they go well together, should I mistakenly put on a pair of gray socks with my black trousers."

But don't you find it boring to wear only two colors?"

Not at all. I find it liberating. I believe my life has value, and I don't want to waste it thinking about clothing," Malcolm said. "I don't want to think about what I will wear in the morning. Truly, can you imagine anything more boring than fashion? Professional sports, perhaps. Grown men swatting little balls, while the rest of the world pays money to applaud. But, on the whole, I find fashion even more tedious than sports."

Dr. Malcolm," Hammond explained, "is a man of strong opinions."

And mad as a hatter," Malcolm said cheerfully. "But you must admit, these are nontrivial issues. We live in a world of frightful givens. It is given that you will behave like this, given that you will care about that. No one thinks about the givens. Isn't it amazing? In the information society, nobody thinks. We expected to banish paper, but we actually banished thought.”
― Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park

“The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal ways of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock -- to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works

“What these orthodox Christians are doing now are the seeds of what I call the Benedict Option, a strategy that draws on the authority of Scripture and the wisdom of the ancient church to embrace “exile in place” and form a vibrant counterculture. Recognizing the toxins of modern secularism, as well as the fragmentation caused by relativism, Benedict Option Christians look to Scripture and to Benedict’s Rule for ways to cultivate practices and communities. Rather than panicking or remaining complacent, they recognize that the new order is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be lived with.”
― Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation

“Medieval man held that reality—what was really real—was outside himself and that dwelling in the darkness of the Fall, he could not fully perceive it. But he could relate to it intellectually through faith and reason, and know it through conversion of the heart. The entire universe was woven into God’s own Being, in ways that are difficult for modern people, even believing Christians, to grasp. Christians of the Middle Ages took Paul’s words recorded in Acts—“in Him we live and move and have our being”—and in his letter to the Colossians—“He is before all things and in Him all things hold together”—in a much more literal sense than we do.”
― Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation

“In the Benedict Option, we are not trying to repeal seven hundred years of history, as if that were possible. Nor are we trying to save the West. We are only trying to build a Christian way of life that stands as an island of sanctity and stability amid the high tide of liquid modernity. We are not looking to create heaven on earth; we are simply looking for a way to be strong in faith through a time of great testing. The Rule, with its vision of an ordered life centered around Christ and the practices it prescribes to deepen our conversion, can help us achieve that goal.”
― Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation

“The monk holds that meaning exists objectively, within the natural world created by God, and is there to be discovered by the person who has detached themselves from their own passions and who seeks to see as God sees.”
― Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation

“Submitting to rules one doesn’t understand is difficult, but it’s a good way to counteract the carnal desire for personal independence. There may not be spiritual merit in choosing to eat two dishes instead of three at a meal, but the humility that comes with agreeing to submit to another’s decision that one do so is transformative.”
― Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation

“Said Father Basil: “Saint Benedict takes the image that Scripture uses to speak about Christ himself. ‘A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench.’ Humanity is already fragile. We need to treat it with care, with concern, with delicacy.”
― Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation

“But it can’t be repeated often enough: believers must avoid the usual trap of thinking that politics can solve cultural and religious problems. Trusting Republican politicians and the judges they appoint to do the work that only cultural change and religious conversion can do is a big reason Christians find ourselves so enfeebled. The deep cultural forces that have been separating the West from God for centuries will not be halted or reversed by a single election, or any election at all.”
― Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation

“If you isolate yourself, you will become weird,” Father Marc continued. “It is a tricky balance between allowing freedom and openness on the one hand, and maintaining a community identity on the other. The idea of community itself should not be allowed to become an idol. A community is a living organism that must change and grow and adapt.”
― Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation

“The moment the Benedict Option becomes about anything other than communion with Christ and dwelling with our neighbors in love, it ceases to be Benedictine,” he said. “It can’t be a strategy for self-improvement or for saving the church or the world.”
― Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation

“Why do we want to kill all the broken people? What is wrong with us, that we think a thing like that can be right?”
― Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

“Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas