Daniel Aldridge:  

Daniel is from Escondido, California. Daniel's schools include San Pasqual High School. Music Daniel likes includes Johnny Cash, CarrTones, Robert Schumann. Books Daniel likes include The Fabric of the Cosmos, Parenting Beyond Belief, William Shakespeare. Movies Daniel likes include Blade Runner, The Shining, Donnie Darko. One of Daniel's favorite quotes is:""Even in our sleep, pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." ~Aeschylus "The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection." ~ Thomas Paine "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." - George W. Bush "I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is." - Derrick Zoolander “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution” - Theodosius Dobzhansky "There is no way to happiness - happiness is the way." - anonymous “Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism”. - David Suzuki "One way to guarantee failure and unhappiness is to believe that one's feelings can abrogate the function of reason." - Thomas Paine "Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger." -- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials "Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish has been caught, will we realize that we cannot eat money." - Cree Indian Proverb "Question with boldness even the existence of God, because if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." - Thomas Jefferson "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." - Goethe "The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd." - Bertrand Russell "Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional myths, in the end, the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own." - Bertrand Russell "Falsehood flies, and Truth comes limping after it; so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late, the jest is over, and the tale has had its effect." - Jonathan Swift "Skepticism, like chastity, should never be relinquished too easily." - George Santayana "In the choice between changing ones mind and proving there's no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof." - John Kenneth Galbraith "Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons." - Michael Shermer "You could go to a magician or witch-doctor to predict the sex of your child - in which the likelihood of accuracy is one time out of two - or you could ask a scientist, in which case it will be 99 times out of a hundred. You could ask an astrologer to predict the next solar eclipse, or you could ask a scientist. You could pray to protect your child from polio - or you could give them a polio vaccine." - Carl Sagan “It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring [that may be]. . . . Superstition and pseudoscience keep getting in the way [of understanding nature], providing easy answers, dodging skeptical scrutiny, casually pressing our awe buttons and cheapening the experience, making us routine and comfortable practitioners as well as victims of credulity. . . . [Pseudoscience] ripples with gullibility. . . . The tenants of skepticism do not require an advanced degree to master, as most successful used car buyers demonstrate. The whole idea of democratic application of skepticism is that everyone should have the essential tools to effectively and constructively evaluate claims to knowledge. . . . But the tools of skepticism are generally unavailable to the citizens of our society. . . .Those who have something to sell, those who wish to influence public opinion, those in power, a skeptic might suggest, have a vested interest in discouraging skepticism” - Sagan "Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics. That’s all she is. You cannot sweet-talk her. You cannot spin her. You cannot tell her that the oil companies say climate change is a hoax. No, Mother Nature is going to do whatever chemistry, biology and physics dictate." - Rob Watson “Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.” - Douglas Adams "The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self." - Nora Ephron "Anecdotal evidence leads us to conclusions that we wish to be true, not conclusions that actually are true." - Barry Beyerstein "Questioning our own motives, and our own process, is critical to a skeptical and scientific outlook. We must realize that the default mode of human psychology is to grab onto comforting beliefs for purely emotional reasons, and then justify those beliefs to ourselves with post-hoc rationalizations." - Steven Novella "History is strewn with ideas that were intuitive and made sense at the time, but were also hopelessly wrong. Intuition will lead you astray. There is nothing magical about science - it is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate the results. So, which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough, using careful observation, being systematic, or using consistent logic?" - Steven Novella "I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the star-less night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm, -- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains." ~Robert G. Ingersoll "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin "Epicurus's old questions are yet unanswered: Is God willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?" — David Hume "Give me the storm and stress of thought and action rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith. Banish me from Eden when you will but first let me eat of the fruit of the Tree of Kn...Expand for more