Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common.
Denis DiderotRead
My study is NOT as a climatologist, but from a completely different perspective in_x000D_ which I am an expert … For decades, as a professional experimental test engineer, I have analyzed experimental data and watched others massage and present data. I became a cynic; My conclusion - 'if someone is aggressively selling a technical product who's merits are dependent on complex experimental data, he is likely lying'. That is true whether the product is an airplane or a Carbon Credit.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes skepticism towards the claims made about technical products, especially when they rely on complex data.
Burt Rutan highlights his perspective as an experimental test engineer, advocating for a critical view of technical claims that depend on complex data. He suggests that if someone is overly aggressive in selling such products, there is a strong likelihood that they are misrepresenting the truth, which can apply universally across various industries, from aviation to environmental credits.
Themes
SkepticismDataTruthScienceEngineeringClaims
In practice
Example use cases
In a presentation about the importance of critical thinking and data literacy, you might quote Rutan to emphasize caution about data interpretation.
Similar quotes
We were staring at the origin of a piece of our own bodies inside this 375-million-year-old fish. We had a fish with a wrist.
Neil ShubinRead
Lest we forget, the birth of modern physics and cosmology was achieved by Galileo, Kepler and Newton breaking free not from the close confining prison of faith (all three were believing Christians, of one sort or another) but from the enormous burden of the millennial authority of Aristotelian science. The scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not a revival of Hellenistic science but its final defeat.
David Bentley HartRead
You can’t say A is made of B or vice versa. All mass is interaction.
Richard P. FeynmanRead
I have experimental evidence that time travel is not possible.
Stephen HawkingRead
In the fields I know best, among the life sciences, it is required that the most expert and sophisticated minds be capable of changing course - often with a great lurch - every few years.
Lewis ThomasRead