Haldane’s four stages of acceptance

Whether the topic is Iraq, religion, discrimination, or even the scientific theory of evolution, you can likely find a use for John B. S. Haldane’s description of the four stages of acceptance of ideas:

      i)    this is worthless nonsense;
      ii)   this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view;
      iii)  this is true, but quite unimportant;
      iv)   I always said so.

 From John B.S. Haldane, Journal of Genetics, #58, 1963, p.464.

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Avatar of Ben
    Ben

    I have always said so, until now, because while it might be true, it is no longer important, and is to me, just a perversely interesting idea, which under closer scrutiny, is of course, worthless nonsense.

  2. Avatar of Claude Horvath
    Claude Horvath

    Has noöne remarked on Gandhi's very similar remark?

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