Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:
- Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
- Do not quote yourself
- Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
- No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
My reading of the quote is that empiricism is superior to rationalism (the old philosophical schools, not the sort we discuss here). If I have a proof that my bridge will hold a thousand pounds, and it breaks under a hundred, then the experiment trumps the proof.
By "proof", do you mean experimental evidence, or armchair rationalization?