You can prove anything you want by coldly logical reason---if you pick the proper postulates.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that one can arrive at any conclusion through logical reasoning, provided the initial assumptions are carefully chosen.
Isaac Asimov's quote highlights the power and potential pitfalls of logical reasoning. It emphasizes that while logic is a strong tool for proving arguments, the conclusions drawn are significantly influenced by the foundational assumptions or postulates. This serves as a cautionary reminder that our beliefs and proofs can be shaped to suit particular narratives depending on the starting points we choose.
In practice
This quote can be used in a debate to highlight the importance of questioning assumptions underpinning an argument.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.
Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
During the century after Newton, it was still possible for a man of unusual attainments to master all fields of scientific knowledge. But by 1800, this had become entirely impracticable.
It is on record that when a young aspirant asked Faraday the secret of his success as a scientific investigator, he replied, 'The secret is comprised in three words- Work, Finish, Publish.'
The voice I use is a very old hardware speech synthesizer made in 1986. I keep it because I have not heard a voice I like better and because I have identified with it.
What is mathematics? It is only a systematic effort of solving puzzles posed by nature.
Perhaps... some day the precision of the data will be brought so far that the mathematician will be able to calculate at his desk the outcome of any chemical combination, in the same way, so to speak, as he calculates the motions of celestial bodies.
Pierre Curie came to see me and showed a simple and sincere sympathy with my student life. Soon he caught the habit of speaking to me of his dream of an existence consecrated entirely to scientific research, and he asked me to share that life.
Of course, if one ignores contradictory observations, one can claim to have an "elegant" or "robust" theory. But it isn't science.
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