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The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays on Science

Book by Peter Medawar · 16 quotes · Science, Scientist, Ifs

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The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays on Science Quotes

“Scientific discovery is a private event, and the delight that accompanies it, or the despair of finding it illusory, does not travel. One scientist may get great satisfaction from another's work and admire it deeply; it may give him great intellectual pleasure; but it gives him no sense of participation in the discovery, it does not carry him away, and his appreciation of it does not depend on his being carried away. If it were otherwise the inspirational origin of scientific discovery would never have been in doubt.”

IfsGivingMayDoeHas BeensPleasureDoubtEventsDependsDespairFindingsIntellectualDiscoveryScientistSatisfactionDelightAppreciationAdmireParticipationAccompanyIllusoryCarried AwayScientific Discovery
Book:The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays on Science
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“I do not believe indeed, I deem it a comic blunder to believe that the exercise of reason is sufficient to explain our condition and where necessary to remedy it, but I do believe that the exercise of reason is at all times necessary.”

BelieveReasonConditionsExerciseAll TimeComicSufficientRemedyBlunders
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“It goes with the passionate intensity and deep conviction of the truth of a religious belief, and of course of the importance of the superstitious observances that go with it, that we should want others to share it - and the only certain way to cause a religious belief to be held by everyone is to liquidate nonbelievers. The price in blood and tears that mankind generally has had to pay for the comfort and spiritual refreshment that religion has brought to a few has been too great to justify our entrusting moral accountancy to religious belief.”

WayWantShouldHas BeensSpiritualCertainCoursesBeliefCausesReligiousPayMoralBloodShareAtheismMankindTearsComfortImportancePassionateConvictionJustifyIntensityReligious BeliefSuperstitiousObservanceRefreshmentsEntrusting
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“Scientists are people of very dissimilar temperaments doing different things in very different ways. Among scientists are collectors, classifiers and compulsive tidiers-up; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and others artisans. There are poet-scientists and philosopher-scientists and even a few mystics.”

PeopleWayDifferentPhilosophyScienceArtistPoetScientistPhilosopherDifferent WaysDifferent ThingsTemperamentDetectivesCollectorsExplorersArtisans
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“In no sense other than an utterly trivial one is reproduction the inverse of chemical disintegration. It is a misunderstanding of genetics to suppose that reproduction is only 'intended' to make facsimiles, for parasexual processes of genetical exchange are to be found in the simplest living things.”

FoundProcessChemicalsMisunderstandingSimplestLiving ThingsGeneticsReproductionDisintegrationInverse
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“French is not a language that lends itself naturally to the opaque and ponderous idiom of nature-philosophy, and Teilhard has according resorted to the use of that tipsy, euphoristic prose-poetry which is one of the more tiresome manifestations of the French spirit.”

PhilosophyUseSpiritLanguageManifestationProseTiresomeIdiomOpaqueProse PoetryTipsy
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“Simultaneous discovery is utterly commonplace, and it was only the rarity of scientists, not the inherent improbability of the phenomenon, that made it remarkable in the past. Scientists on the same road may be expected to arrive at the same destination, often not far apart.”

MayMadePastScienceDiscoveryScientistExpectedMade ItRemarkableDestinationPhenomenonInherentCommonplaceRaritySimultaneousImprobability
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“For a scientist must indeed be freely imaginative and yet skeptical, creative and yet a critic. There is a sense in which he must be free, but another in which his thought must be very preceisely regimented; there is poetry in science, but also a lot of bookkeeping.”

ScienceImaginationCreativeImagineScientistAccountsCriticsImaginativeSkepticalBookkeeping
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