Woo's Favorite Quotes?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

I vote: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

[Codeine]

1. I mentioned it earlier

but it gets repeated an awful lot, especially by those who believe the universe may be electrical in nature (ahem.)

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." -Einstein

[woo me with science]

6. That constant yearning to quote actual scientists

is actually sort of poignant.

[HuckleB]

2. "One man's hogwash is another's spiritual truth."

Well, I'm sure it's been said more succinctly, but... this one is very recent.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

3. Not really a quote, but usually some reference to Galileo

[HuckleB]

7. Ah, you want quote quotes.

I just pulled my recent favorite from a DUwooer.

[TZ]

4. Anything that has quantuum or all natural in it.

:eyes:

[woo me with science]

5. I did a quick search of their forum.

Some they have cited:



"Mechanistic reductionism often masquerades as maturity"
Richard Tarnas


“It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how things are in themselves. The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”
Carl Gustav Jung


“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Gandhi


The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell


"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
Thomas Jefferson


"Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure....
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
Nelson Mandela


"Let us treat men and women well; treat them as if they were real. Perhaps they are."
Ralph Waldo Emerson


I used to be drop-dead terrified of the Illuminati/Family/Anunaki/lizard people.... But ....Now they're just a big, scary-faced balloon. One good pin (made of light, of course) and they'll fly around the room backward till they collapse fffft on the floor. Remember how Professor Lupin taught the Hogwarts students to deal with the boggart in the wardrobe--with laughter. "Riddikulus!"
A DU-er


.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

12. ROFLOL!

The Gandhi one definitely has to be on of the top ones.

[mr blur]

8. "You don't have the imagination to think outside the box",

and variations thereof.

[LeftishBrit]

9. Not a quote, but variants of 'Science is just another religion'

The most purple phrase on those lines was an accusation of some of us being 'Worshippers at the altar of reductionist science'.

Though I think my favourite argument ever was that Jenny McCarthy MUST be right about autism, or why would they have given her TWO book contracts?!

[TZ]

10. Ha!

Do you remember that idiot that told me all the data on gardasil's efficacy and safety was "faith based science"?. That was the first time I realized that anti-vaxxers think exactly like creationists....

[mr blur]

11. "But...I saw it on Oprah!"

[Orrex]

13. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy"

Invoked any time a new and/or as-yet-unexplained phenomenon is encountered.

Also used whenever someone points out, for example, that there is absolutely no evidence that "chi" exists.

[onager]

15. You can make their heads explode with that one.

Woo interpretation: Horatio is a boring ol' materialist who can't believe in a talking ghost.

Maybe not. The way many experts in Shakespearean English explain that quote, it's more ANTI-woo.

The line is simply saying something we skeptics often point out - philosophy (or physics, evolution, science, goofy wooisms etc.) can't explain everything we might come across in the world. At least not yet.

Here's one of the experts, from the useful "Misunderstood Shakespeare" website:

An apparently straightforward line, said by Hamlet to his old friend Horatio, but Frank Kermode has suggested in his book "Shakespeare’s Language" that the use of “your” has been misunderstood.

Rather than “your” referring to Horatio, Kermode argues that its meaning may be closer to “the”.

Hamlet is thus not criticising Horatio’s earthbound world-view, but saying that philosophy itself does not encompass all that mankind may come across.

In fact this sense of “your” still appears in modern speech...in for example, the phrase “You see, the problem with your Russians is...”

http://shakespeareantheatre.suite101.com/article.cfm/misunderstood_shakespeare

[Deep13]

35. Yep, because ackowledging that I don't know everything...

...means that god did it!

[EvolveOrConvolve]

14. One time, there was this cat that could do acupuncture

No shit: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/05/18/petscol051810.DTL

It was technically posted in the lounge and not one of the woo sub-fora, but it brought out a couple of woos, and it technically wasn't a quote, but it was woo-fully ignorant nonetheless.

[charlie]

17. I have a cat who always races ahead of me to the bathroom

She perches on the sink and when I'm done, expects a full blissed-out body massage.

I can only conclude she was owned by perverts in a past life.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

18. My cat Basil does that too.

He runs into the bathroom first. Apparently a couple of days ago he drank pee-water while he was in there with my husband.

[realisticphish]

20. mine too

he stands on the edge of the bathtub and stares at me. or he'll go guard the door

[charlie]

16. "There are no accidents"

Looks at Bangladeshi kid...

"It's no accident you're starving, y'know."

Another day, another consciousness raised.

[Odin2005]

19. Anything with "Scientism" or "Reductionism".

[SidDithers]

21. The woowoo credo...

I'm sure everyone's seen it, and it's getting a bit dated, but there's good stuff in there:
http://www.insolitology.com/tests/credo.htm

My fave? #10

Use the word quantum in a sentence, despite not knowing what it means. For a more impressive effect, use it with the name of your favorite superstition - "quantum dowsing" sure sounds mighty serious.

Sid

[Orrex]

22. #40 is pretty great, too

40 When all else fails, try to redefine what "skeptical", "skeptic" and "skepticism" mean so that you become a 'real' skeptic who accepts your own nonsense at face value.

Love it! I can't count the number of times I've been told what true skepticism is or that I'm not a true skeptic. Hell, it's happened even here in the SSP group!

[Anarcho-Socialist]

23. something that insinuates that Woo is a progressive "knowledge system"

compared to the "knowledge system" of "Evil pharma/Establishment/Lizard Men/Corporate/Fascist/Communist/Feminist/Patriarchal" (delete as appropriate) science.

[LeftishBrit]

24. My latest fave...

from a particularly bizarre character on the I/P forum, who I think *has* finally been TS'd, is:

'The world would be a better place if you read up on chaos theory and weren't such a beta male cunt.'

(I regret to say that it wasn't addressed to me, especially as I am not male; but still, a most profound comment on the world!)

[realisticphish]

25. ah, yes, chaos theory

the deepest love of high school seniors who read michael crichton and decide that they're now mathematicians

[Behind the Aegis]

27. Alas, his "sage" advice resulted in a "perfect" tombstone.

:evilgrin:

[salvorhardin]

31. Not to argue with perfection but...

How exactly could one be a "beta male cunt"? That seems to defy anatomy, except perhaps for a few hermaphrodites I suppose.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

33. WTF??

Was that our "magical" tombstoned friend?

[LeftishBrit]

34. No...

it was someone called Perfect Sage, who seems to have had a habit of (a) getting very drunk; and (b) whenever very drunk, taking the opportunity to post on DU, generally the I/P forum. His posts generally included lots of swear-words, references to Sun Tsu, and a tendency to taunt Israel and Jews for not winning enough wars. The other day, he went to extremes even by his own standards, and got himself TS'd.

[Behind the Aegis]

26. Not a fave among all "woos" but a fave among plenty (also not a quote, a picture)

Seems to sum up many of their "theories," don't ya think?

[realisticphish]

28. 50 points to whoever posts that

the next time anyone starts ranting about zionists

[TZ]

30. Be glad to.

Any thread about Israel will probably do...

[LeftishBrit]

29. Certainly the attitude of whale.to, which is sometimes used to justify health woo!

[salvorhardin]

32. Sadly, also a fave among some skeptics and atheists too.

*sigh*

[Deep13]

36. An elderly woman and former teacher told me once...

...that on 9/11 there were no Jews in the World Trade Center, implying that they were in on it. The worst part? She was a volunteer at a Kerry for President campaign office.

[laconicsax]

37. I like this one...

"One can charge water with [Emoto cards], etc. Just got out the merkaba from the pyramid, and now I have infinite love and gratitude radiating all the time from my desk."