On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament] "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
The difference between happiness and misery … often comes down to an error of only a few degrees.
The precepts of man have gone so far in subverting our educational system that in many cases a higher degree today, in the so-called social sciences, can be tantamount to a major investment in error. Very few men build firmly enough on the rock of revelation to go through this kind of an indoctrination and come out untainted. Unfortunately, of those who succumb, some use their higher degree to get teaching positions even in our Church educational system, where they spread the falsehoods they have been taught. President Joseph F. Smith was right when he said that false educational ideas would be one of the three threats to the Church within (Gospel Doctrine, pp. 312-13).
...it is philosophically impossible to reject truth without accepting error, to shut out the light without being immersed in darkness, to reject true teachers without cleaving to false ones, to reject the true Christ and his prophets without giving allegiance to those who follow another Master.
…if you are to fight these errors, you have to know the main arguments advanced in favor of them. You have to hear the Devil’s case, so to speak, presented as strongly as his case permits…You have to be sure you know on each issue what really is true and what is wrong with the arguments advanced for the erroneous position.