Named source · 1871

The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex Quotes by Charles Darwin: Context & Meanings

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Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

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“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”

Charles Darwin

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Darwin warns that limited knowledge can make sweeping certainty easier, while deeper inquiry often exposes how much remains unresolved.

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The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Introduction, represented by Project Gutenberg #2300. Darwin writes that 'ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge' while rejecting confident claims that human origins could never be solved by science. The frozen quotation capitalizes the clause as a standalone sentence although it appears after a colon in the witness; it remains a historical scientific argument, not a universal quantitative law about confidence.

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