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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" (sometimes shortened to ECREE), [1] also known as the Sagan standard, is an aphorism popularized by science communicator Carl Sagan. He used the phrase in his 1979 book Broca's Brain and the 1980 television program Cosmos .
The unexamined life is not worth living" is a famous dictum supposedly uttered by Socrates at his trial for impiety and corrupting youth, for which he was subsequently sentenced to death. The dictum is recorded in Plato's Apology (38a5–6) as ho dè anexétastos bíos ou biōtòs anthrṓpōi (but the unexamined life is not lived by man) ( ὁ ...
Also apophthegm. A terse, pithy saying, akin to a proverb, maxim, or aphorism. aposiopesis A rhetorical device in which speech is broken off abruptly and the sentence is left unfinished. apostrophe A figure of speech in which a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes ...
The most common contemporary understanding of theme is an idea or point that is central to a story, which can often be summed in a single word (for example, love, death, betrayal). Typical examples of themes of this type are conflict between the individual and society; coming of age; humans in conflict with technology; nostalgia ; and the ...
Don Quixote and his sidekick Sancho Panza, as illustrated by Gustave Doré: the characters' contrasting qualities [1] are reflected here even in their physical appearances. In any narrative, a foil is a character who contrasts with another character, typically, a character who contrasts with the protagonist, in order to better highlight or differentiate certain qualities of the protagonist.
Little is known of Shakespeare's personal life, and some anti-Stratfordians take this as circumstantial evidence against his authorship. [37] Further, the lack of biographical information has sometimes been taken as an indication of an organised attempt by government officials to expunge all traces of Shakespeare, including perhaps his school records, to conceal the true author's identity.
The dictum appears in Hitchens's 2007 book God Is Not Great: How religion poisons everything. [3]: 150, 258 The term "Hitchens's razor" itself first appeared (as "Hitchens' razor") in an online forum in October 2007, and was used by atheist blogger Rixaeton in December 2010, and popularised by, among others, evolutionary biologist and atheist activist Jerry Coyne after Hitchens died in ...
In the legal sphere, anecdotal evidence, if it passes certain legal requirements and is admitted as testimony, is a common form of evidence used in a court of law. Often this form of anecdotal evidence is the only evidence presented at trial. [30] Scientific evidence in a court of law is called physical evidence, but this is much rarer ...