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Peter Medawar

Peter Medawar Quotes

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Famous Peter Medawar 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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“Observation is the generative act in scientific discovery. For all its aberrations, the evidence of the senses is essentially to be relied upon provided we observe nature as a child does, without prejudices and preconceptions, but with that clear and candid vision which adults lose and scientists must strive to regain.”

ChildrenDoeLosesVisionClearEvidenceDiscoveryAdultsScientistPrejudiceStriveSensesObservationPreconceptionsScientific DiscoveryCandidAberration
Book:Induction and intuition in scientific thought
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“It is high time that laymen abandoned the misleading belief that scientific enquiry is a cold dispassionate enterprise, bleached of imaginative qualities, and that a scientist is a man who turns the handle of discovery; for at every level of endeavour scientific research is a passionate undertaking and the Promotion of Natural Knowledge depends above all on a sortee into what can be imagined but is not yet known.”

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Author:Peter Medawar
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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.”

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Book:The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays on Science
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“Deductivism in mathematical literature and inductivism in scientific papers are simply the postures we choose to be seen in when the curtain goes up and the public sees us. The theatrical illusion is shattered if we ask what goes on behind the scenes. In real life discovery and justification are almost always different processes.”

IfsDifferentRealScienceAsksLiteratureProcessDifferencesBehindsGoes OnScenePaperIllusionDiscoveryMathematicsTheatreReal LifeMathematicalJustificationPapersCurtainsShatteredTheatricalPostureBehind The Scenes
Book:Induction and intuition in scientific thought
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