"In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms."- Stephen Jay Gould
'Perverse to withhold provisional assent' perfectly captures those times when the weight of the evidence is so overwhelmingly in favor of one possibility, that for the time being it would be ludicrous to disagree with what the evidence is pointing to.
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