Quacks Quotes
More Quacks Quotes
The required techniques of effective reasoning are pretty formal, but as long as programming is done by people that don't master them, the software crisis will remain with us and will be considered an incurable disease. And you know what incurable diseases do: they invite the quacks and charlatans in, who in this case take the form of Software Engineering gurus.
edsger w. dijkstra— Dijkstra (2000) "Answers to questions from students of Software Engineering" (EWD 1305)
As a humorist-scientist, Fort both aligns himself with all scientists, making them guilty by association with him — they are quacks too, anyone driven to belief by a system is a quack — and he always leaves himself a few curious exits.
charles fort— Paul Mann in Masocriticism (1999)
The practice of physic is jostled by quacks on the one side, and by science on the other.
peter mere latham— Book I, ch. 25
We have a saying in the union: "If a fellow looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, the possibility is that he is a duck." That is the way with a Communist. If the guy does everything that the party does, the prospects are very good that he is a party member or fellow traveler.
walter reuther— Regarding Communists; hearing before the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare (1953)
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
— Meaning: "It is usually safe to identify somebody as a particular type of person when his or her appearance, behavior, and words all point to the same conclusion."
— Source for meaning: Martin H. Manser (2007). The Facts on File Dictionary of Proverbs. Infobase Publishing.
— Reportedly coined by James Whitcombe Riley, sometime before his demise 1916. He wrote: When I see a bird that walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.
— Made famous by the then Governor Ronald Reagan's use of the expression 1967, in an interview with a journalist. (Cryer 2011, p. 163)
But however mysterious is nature , however ignorant the doctor, however imperfect the present state of physical science , the patronage and the success of quacks and quackeries are infinitely more wonderful than those of honest and laborious men of science and their careful experiments.
p. t. barnum— Chapter XXVIII
In a bull market, one must avoid the error of the preening duck that quacks boastfully after a torrential rainstorm, thinking that its paddling skills have caused it to rise in the world. A right-thinking duck would instead compare its position after the downpour to that of the other ducks on the pond.
warren buffett— 1997 Chairman's Letter
Mankind has failed miserably in its effort to devise a rational system of government. [...] The art of government is the exclusive possession of quacks and frauds. It has been so since the earliest days, and it will probably remain so until the end of time.
h. l. mencken— 201
Laws should be made, not against quacks but against superstition.
rudolf virchow— In Fielding Hudson Garrison, An Introduction to the History of Medicine (1966), 577.
But however mysterious is nature , however ignorant the doctor, however imperfect the present state of physical science , the patronage and the success of quacks and quackeries are infinitely more wonderful than those of honest and laborious men of science and their careful experiments.
— P. T. Barnum, The Humbugs of the World (1865), Chapter XXVIII
The required techniques of effective reasoning are pretty formal, but as long as programming is done by people that don't master them, the software crisis will remain with us and will be considered an incurable disease. And you know what incurable diseases do: they invite the quacks and charlatans in, who in this case take the form of Software Engineering gurus.
— Edsger W. Dijkstra (2000) EWD 1305: Answers to questions from students of Software Engineering
The strong appearance of design [in nature] allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it's so obvious.
michael behe— "Design for Living", New York Times, 7 February 2005
The deadliest enemies of nations are not their foreign foes; they always dwell within their borders. And from these internal enemies civilization is always in need of being saved. The nation blest above all nations is she in whom the civic genius of the people does the saving day by day, by acts without external picturesqueness; by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by smiting corruption swiftly; by good temper between parties; by the people knowing true men when they see them, and preferring them as leaders to rabid partisans or empty quacks.
william james— Robert Gould Shaw: Oration upon the Unveiling of the Shaw Monument
The strong appearance of design [in nature] allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it's so obvious.
— Michael Behe, "Design for Living", The New York Times (7 February 2005)
