Despite the absence of empirical evidence, the conviction among those who took part in the riots remains relevant.
But his perfectionism was grounded, as I have suggested, in his conviction that "empirical" utilitarianism was gradually and relentlessly giving way to "rational" utilitarianism, which his embrace of Lamarckianism encouraged.
Correcting erroneous convictions requires the ability to accurately deduce the logical implications of empirical evidence for certain convictions.
The different outcomes with respect to mother tongue instruction illustrate this point well, in as much as reliance on empirical evidence, as opposed to normative convictions, seems to have been stronger in Sweden than Denmark.
It's a rigorously rational, empirical book, rooted in this cognitive scientist's conviction that our behavior has evolved, biologically into our flawed history as a moral species.
In contrast, there is empirical research about the similarity of right-wing convictions between parents and children.
His famous conclusion in Candide, for example, that optimism was a philosophical chimera produced when dialectical reason remains detached from brute empirical facts owed a great debt to his Newtonian convictions.
However, conviction concerning the necessity, transparency and objectivity of empirical data for the audit of innovations was common to all.
Among those surveyed, there was a direct correlation between religious conviction and an unwillingness to accept the results of empirical scientific investigation.
In any case, the dichotomy they use illustrates a conviction shared by many scientists who are trained in empirical disciplines: that there is something problematic about policy recommendations based on personal opinion.
