TsviBT comments on Rationality Quotes November 2012 - Less Wrong

6 [deleted] 06 November 2012 10:38PM

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Comment author: TsviBT 04 November 2012 04:06:07AM 13 points [-]

“It was, of course, a grand and impressive thing to do, to mistrust the obvious, and to pin one’s faith in things which could not be seen!”

-Galen, a Roman doctor/philosopher, on Asclepiades's unwillingness to admit that the kidneys processed urine - despite Galen demonstrating the function of the kidneys to Asclepiades by, well, cutting open a live animal and pointing to the urine flowing from its kidneys to its bladder (search the page for "ligatures" to find Galen's experiment described), among other things.

Comment author: thomblake 09 November 2012 04:16:26PM 5 points [-]

And in case it's not obvious to readers, the Greeks were huge fans of irony - the above quote should be read sarcastically.