TFF, I hope the following is a summary of what you meant to say. If not, let me know:
One thing that irks me is that, (while) the scientists are still trying to figure stuff out, in swoop the obscurantists to "explain" the implications of it.
One justification they use is that if the scientists don't know everything, then they really know nothing.
...
...Bertrand Russell summarized the problem (the one created by obscurantists?) when he wrote "The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. ... but I got to read it at
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/russell.htm )
And I got to read about the passions I admire:
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life:
1. the longing for love,
2. the search for knowledge, and
3. unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind....
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
-- Bertrand Russell, "What I Have Lived For," the prologue to his Autobiography, vol. I p. 4
Russell, Age 8, My whole religion is this:
1. do every duty, and
2. expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.
-- Bertrand Russell, childhood diary, quoted from Against the Faith by Jim Herrick
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
-- Bertrand Russell, Skeptical Essays (1928)
