Sooner or later, false thinking brings wrong conduct.
Interpretation
False beliefs and misconceptions inevitably lead to harmful actions.
Julian Huxley's quote highlights the detrimental effects of misguided thinking on behavior. It emphasizes that when individuals hold onto false beliefs, their actions will likely be misaligned with reality, ultimately resulting in negative consequences. The quote serves as a reminder of the importance of critical thinking and striving for truth, as our thoughts influence our actions and the world around us.
In practice
In a speech about critical thinking, one could illustrate the dangers of false thinking using this quote.
...any belief in supernatural creators, rulers, or influencers of natural or human process introduces an irreparable split into the universe, and prevents us from grasping its real unity. Any belief in Absolutes, whether the absolute validity of moral commandments, of authority of revelation, of inner certitudes, or of divine inspiration, erects a formidable barrier against progress and the responsibility of improvement, moral, rational, and religious.
To speculate without facts is to attempt to enter a house of which one has not the key, by wandering aimlessly round and round, searching the walls and now and then peeping through the windows. Facts are the key.
Today the god hypothesis has ceased to be scientifically tenable, has lost its explanatory value and is becoming an intellectual and moral burden to our thought. It no longer convinces or comforts, and its abandonment often brings a deep sense of relief.
Will our Philosophy to later Life_x000D_ _x000D_ Seem but a crudeness of the planet's youth,_x000D_ _x000D_ Our Wisdom but a parasite of Truth?
The scientific doctrine of progress is destined to replace not only the myth of progress, but all other myths of human earthly destiny. It will inevitably become one of the cornerstones of man's theology, or whatever may be the future substitute for theology, and the most important external support for human ethics.
One of the unique things about the human brain is that it can do only what it thinks it can do. The minute you say 'my memory isn't what it used to be' or 'I can't remember a thing today.' You are actually training your brain to live up to your diminished expectations.
The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life.
You had to take risks, follow some paths and abandon others.
A traveller at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedaemonian, "I do not believe you can do as much." "True," said he, "but every goose can."
You may as well quit reading and hearing the Word of God, and give it to the devil, if you do not desire to live according to it.
And the quality of good judgement is clearly a form of knowledge and skill, as it is because of knowledge and not because of ignorance that we judge well.
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