Prediction is not the same thing as understanding, but in the absence of prediction, we can certainly doubt understanding. - Robyn Dawes

What causes the lunatic to demand that ideas not be subject to scrutiny—and in particular that they not be contradicted? No one knows. It may be part of a deliberate campaign to maintain power, an implicit admission of some semiconscious fear that the ideas might not be good, or just a common aspect of types of behavior that we associate with historical monsters. At least, the correlation is there.

These people were saying in effect that “I would be rational except that you are so irrational that I can’t be.” This stance makes the person who adopts it just as culpable as anyone who flat-out endorses irrationality.

True scientific demonstration involves convincing an observer who is outside the process, particularly one not deeply and emotionally enmeshed in it.