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Function Quotes

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Function Quotes

“What we publishers think is that our function is to bring everything out into the open, on the theory that we have an adult population that knows values, or can learn them, and let them decide.”

Thinking Knows Values Theory Adults Function Population Publishing Publishers

Author:Maxwell Perkins

“When scientists need to explain difficult points of theory, illustration by hypothetical example - rather than by total abstraction - works well (perhaps indispensably) as a rhetorical device. Such cases do not function as speculations in the pejorative sense - as silly stories that provide insight into complex mechanisms - but rather as idealized illustrations to exemplify a difficult point of theory. (Other fields, like philosophy and the law, use such conjectural cases as a standard device.”

Source: Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

“For centuries it was never discovered that education was a function of the State, and the State never attempted to educate. But when modern absolutism arose, it laid claim to everything on behalf of the sovereign power....When the revolutionary theory of government began to prevail, and Church and State found that they were educating for opposite ends and in a contradictory spirit, it became necessary to remove children entirely from the influence of religion.”

“It's a flaw in our argument, for sure. By any reading of evolutionary theory, creationists ought to have died out ages ago. They serve no function in the planet's ecosystem, and no other species has survived so long while in such fundamental disagreement with observable reality. If I wasn't such an ardent believer in secular materialism, I'd wager this is really troubling Darwin in the afterlife.”

Ifs Long Reality Age Reading Planets Theory Ought Argument Function Died Fundamentals Species Believer Materialism Flaws Afterlife Secular Survived Disagreement Ecosystems Ardent Wagers

Author:Richard Dawkins

“I don't think theory adds to criticism. (Methodology does, for better or worse.) Theory's function is to make criticism self-conscious, maybe even a little sheepish, about its ex cathedra pronouncements.”

Thinking Littles Doe Self Theory Conscious Criticism Function Add Exes Self Conscious Methodology

Author:Paul Fry

“Well, the actual function of the brain, not so sure yet. There's a lot of different theories about it, but when you talk about psychologically in your brain, a lot of people with insomnia, though not all, report that they can't turn their minds off.”

People Mind Wells Different Turns Brain Theory Function Reports Insomnia

Author:Shelby Harris

“My work was fairly theoretical. It was in recursive function theory. And in particular, hierarchies of functions in terms of computational complexity. I got involved in real computers and programming mainly by being - well, I was interested even as I came to graduate school.”

Wells Real School Term Particular Theory Involved Computer Function Complexity Programming Graduates Hierarchy Theoretical Graduate School

Author:Dennis Ritchie

“They believed that prediction was just a function of keeping track of things. If you knew enough, you could predict anything. That's been cherished scientific belief since Newton.' And?' Chaos theory throws it right out the window.”

Ifs Enough Belief Theory Window Function Chaos Track Predictions Newton Chaos Theory

Book:Michael Crichton's Jurassic World

Source: Michael Crichton's Jurassic World

“Can one think that because we are engineers, beauty does not preoccupy us or that we do not try to build beautiful, as well as solid and long lasting structures? Aren't the genuine functions of strength always in keeping with unwritten conditions of harmony? ... Besides, there is an attraction, a special charm in the colossal to which ordinary theories of art do not apply.”

“Hypostatized into a ritual pattern, Marxian theory becomes ideology. But its content and function distinguish it from classical forms of ideology; it is not false consciousness, but a rather consciousness of falsehood, a falsehood which is corrected in the context of the higher truth represented by the objective historical interest.”

Form Interest Consciousness Theory Higher Function Historical Patterns Objectives Ideology Communism Ritual Falsehood

Author:Herbert Marcuse

“... one of the main functions of an analogy or model is to suggest extensions of the theory by considering extensions of the analogy, since more is known about the analogy than is known about the subject matter of the theory itself ... A collection of observable concepts in a purely formal hypothesis suggesting no analogy with anything would consequently not suggest either any directions for its own development.”

Matter Science Known Subjects Theory Development Models Concepts Function Collections Considering Formal Extensions Hypothesis Subject Matter Analogies Suggesting

Author:Mary Hesse

“Evolution is the creation-myth of our age. By telling us our origin it shapes our views of what we are. It influences not just our thought, but our feelings and actions too, in a way which goes far beyond its official function as a biological theory.”

Way Feelings Age Action Views Influence Creation Theory Evolution Shapes Function Myth Officials Our Thoughts Creation Myths

Book:The Essential Mary Midgley

Source: The Essential Mary Midgley

“[T]he influence of the German school is most obvious in relation to the contract theory of the origin of the state and the idea of the function of the state. The theory that the state originates in an agreement between men was assailed by the German thinkers and the historical, organic, evolutionary idea substituted for it.”

Men Ideas States Government School Influence Theory Function Relation Historical Obvious Agreement Contracts Thinker

Author:Charles Edward Merriam

“Any first-order, substantive normative theory worth its salt will require attention to the mental states of agents in a variety of quite complex ways. But realism, being a view about the status of such normative theories, insists that the truth of any firstorder normative standard is not a function of what anyone happens to think of it.”

Thinking Way Firsts States Happens Action Order Views Attention Moral Psychology Theory Standards Ethics Function Complexes Agents Variety Salt Realism Worth It

Book:Moral Realism: A Defence

Source: Moral Realism: A Defence

“Through spontaneity we are re-formed into ourselves. It creates an explosion that for the moment frees us from handed-down frames of reference, memory choked with old facts and information and undigested theories and techniques of other people's findings. Spontaneity is the moment of personal freedom when we are faced with reality, and see it, explore it and act accordingly. In this reality the bits and pieces of ourselves function as an organic whole. It is the time of discovery, of experiencing, of creative expression.”

Source: Improvisation for the Theater: A Handbook of Teaching and Directing Techniques