Browsing Quotes With Tag: science (24)
-
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.
...And such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happen much oftener, neglect and pass them by. But with far more subtlety does this mischief insinuate itself into philosophy and the sciences; in which the first conclusion colors and brings into conformity with itself all that come after, though far sounder and better. Besides, independently of that delight and vanity which I have described, it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human intellect to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives; whereas it ought properly to hold itself indifferently disposed toward both alike. Indeed, in the establishment of any true axiom, the negative instance is the more forcible of the two.Speaker: Francis BaconSource: Novum OrganumPosted: 11 Dec 2014 at 1:16 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Seven deadly sins: politics without principle; wealth without work; pleasure without conscience; knowledge without character; business without morality; science with humanity; and worship without sacrifice.
Speaker: E. Stanley JonesPosted: 10 Nov 2014 at 10:52 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Through doubting we question, and through questioning we perceive the truth.
Speaker: Peter AbelardPosted: 10 Nov 2014 at 10:47 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations.
Speaker: John Von NeumannPosted: 09 Feb 2014 at 5:57 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
I try not to think with my gut. If I’m serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble.
Speaker: Carl SaganSource: the God DelusionPosted: 20 Oct 2013 at 10:06 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
I think [Science is] the way of arriving at truth about the universe because, taken at its most general sense, science is disciplined inquiry. It’s an inquiry that formulates its questions carefully, and which tests them – and it does so in a way that is public and repeatable – which submits itself to review by other people (i.e. – challenge), and which is very open-minded; it’s prepared to accept that it may not arrive at answers but, if it does arrive at answers, those answers might generate new questions. But it’s prepared to put up with those. There’s something very special about the scientific mindset, which is that it is prepared to live with open-endedness.
Speaker: A.C. GraylingSource: http://whyscience.co.uk/Posted: 07 Aug 2009 at 7:04 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Definitions are not correct or incorrect, they are simply useful or useless, where usefulness is judged by the clarity of one’s attempts at communication.
Speaker: SeanPosted: 06 Aug 2009 at 9:17 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Speaker: Arthur ClarkePosted: 28 Jul 2009 at 6:51 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.
Speaker: Pope John Paul IISource: James Reston, Galileo, A Life, HarperCollins, NY, 1994, p 461 (http://naturalscience.com/dsqhome.html)Posted: 06 Jul 2009 at 8:35 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponent and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
Speaker: Max PlanckSource: Labyrinths of ReasonPosted: 15 Jun 2009 at 4:37 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
Speaker: Martin Luther King Jr.Posted: 18 Mar 2009 at 8:48 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Speaker: Albert EinsteinPosted: 18 Mar 2009 at 7:25 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
Speaker: Albert EinsteinPosted: 18 Mar 2009 at 7:24 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
Speaker: Isaac AsimovPosted: 18 Mar 2009 at 5:54 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Il y a deux sortes de savants: les spécialistes, qui connaissent tout sur rien, et les philosophes, qui ne connaissent rien sur tout.
Speaker: George Bernard ShawPosted: 13 Feb 2009 at 8:38 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
In science it often happens that scientists say, “You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,” and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
Speaker: Carl SaganPosted: 28 Nov 2008 at 12:49 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII — and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we’ve realized it’s a brochure.
Speaker: Douglas AdamsPosted: 01 Oct 2008 at 4:12 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
“There are only three places to look. Science – and I was taught more about how the universe ticks while I was still in the nest than human scientists can yet handle. So much that I can’t talk to them, even about as elementary a gimmick as levitation. I’m not disparaging scientists. What they do is as it should be; I grok that fully. But what they are after is not what I am looking for – you don’t grok a desert by counting its grains of sand. Then there’s philosophy – supposed to tackle everything. Does it? All any philosopher comes out with is what he walked in with – except for self-deluders who prove their assumptions by their conclusions.”
Speaker: Robert HeinleinPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 11:55 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
But with bleak honesty Jubal admitted that the Fosterites might own the Truth, the exact Truth, nothing but the Truth. The Universe was a silly place at best… but the least likely explanation for it was the no-explanation of random chance, the conceit that abstract somethings “just happened” to be atoms that “just happened” to get together in ways which “just happened” to look like consistent laws and some configurations “just happened” to possess self-awareness and that two “just happened” to be the Man from Mars and a bald-headed old coot with Jubal inside.
No, he could not swallow the “just happened” theory, popular as it was with men who called themselves scientists. Random chance was not a sufficient explanation of the Universe – random chance was not sufficient to explain random chance; the pot could not hold itself.Speaker: Robert HeinleinPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 10:54 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
“Dr. Hoenikker used to say that any scientist who couldn’t explain to an eight-year-old what he was doing was a charlatan.”
Speaker: Kurt VonnegutSource: Cat's CradlePosted: 19 Aug 2008 at 8:09 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment!