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Generalization Quotes

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Generalization Quotes

“The word generalization in literature usually means covering too much territory too thinly to be persuasive, let alone convincing. In science, however, a generalization means a principle that has been found to hold true in every special case.... The principle of leverage is a scientific generalization.”

MeanHas BeensFoundLiteraturePrinciplesCasesToo MuchSpecialTerritoryConvincingCoveringPersuasiveGeneralization
Book:Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking
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“Let us suppose that an ichthyologist is exploring the life of the ocean. He casts a net into the water and brings up a fishy assortment. Surveying his catch, he proceeds in the usual manner of a scientist to systematise what it reveals. He arrives at two generalisations: No sea-creature is less than two inches long. (2) All sea-creatures have gills. These are both true of his catch, and he assumes tentatively that they will remain true however often he repeats it.”

LongTwoWaterSeaCreaturesOceanScientistAssumingCastsRepeatsUsualInchesExploringGeneralizationFishy
Author:Arthur Eddington
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“It is very easy to make wild generalizations about Islam. All you have to do is read almost any issue of The New Republic and you'll see there the radical evil that's associated with Islam, the Arabs as having a depraved culture, and so forth. These are impossible generalizations to make in the United States about any other religious or ethnic group.”

StatesCultureEvilEasyReligiousUnitedUnited StatesIssuesImpossibleGroupsIslamRadicalRepublicGeneralizationDepravedEthnic Groups
Author:Edward Said
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“But when you only speak using generalizations, you run the danger of denying the specific. In recent decades, millions of people have come to us from cultural groups within which women have absolutely no rights. They do not have a voice of their own and they are totally dependent on their fathers, brothers or husbands. That applies to North Africa and that applies to large parts of the Middle East. It isn't always linked to Islam.”

PeopleRunningFatherSpeakVoiceMillionsRightsGroupsMiddleDangerBrotherHusbandIslamEastDecadesDependentMiddle EastLinkedGeneralizationNorth Africa
Author:Alice Schwarzer
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“Obviously, there's all sorts of life happening all around us, but on a human level, I'm just interested in people making informed decisions. You know, increasing their awareness. And also, trying to encourage people to be more fascinated with information and science and knowledge of all sorts, instead of, you know, it's a generalization, but the encouragement by society, the reflections that society gives us, which is media, television, art - anything, really.”

PeopleKnowsGivingTryingHumansArtDecisionLevelsAwarenessMediaInformationTelevisionHappeningsReflectionEncouragementFascinatedGeneralizationLife Happens
Author:Reggie Watts
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“It simply isn't true, for example, that being big is in general better for fitness than being small except when there are effects of interacting variables; or that flying slow and high is in general better for fitness than flying fast and low except when there are effects of interacting variables; or that being monogamous is in general better for fitness than being polygamous... except when there are effects of interacting variables... It's not that the underlying generalizations are there but imperceptible in the ambient noise.”

BigsEffectsExampleLowsFlyingNoiseVariablesInteractingGeneralizationAmbient
Author:Jerry Fodor
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“He resented such questions as people do who have thought a great deal about them. The superficial and slipshod have ready answers, but those looking this complex life straight in the eye acquire a wealth of perception so composed of delicately balanced contradictions that they dread, or resent, the call to couch any part of it in a bland generalization. The vanity (if not outrage) of trying to cage this dance of atoms in a single definition may give the weariness of age with the cry of youth for answers the appearance of boredom.”

PeopleIfsGivingTryingMayEyeAgeWealthAnswersDealsCryYouthReadyPerceptionComplexesDefinitionsAppearanceVanityBoredomAcquireContradictionAtomsDreadBalancedSuperficialCagesCouchesOutrageResentWearinessBlandGeneralization
Author:Peter De Vries
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“The problem with labels is that they lead to stereotypes and stereotypes lead to generalizations and generalizations lead to assumptions and assumptions lead back to stereotypes. It’s a vicious cycle, and after you go around and around a bunch of times you end up believing that all vegans only eat cabbage and all gay people love musicals.”

PeopleBelieveEndsProblemGayBunchLabelsAssumptionCyclesVeganStereotypeViciousGay PeopleGeneralizationCabbageVicious Cycles
Author:Ellen DeGeneres
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“An extra-terrestrial philosopher, who had watched a single youth up to the age of twenty-one and had never come across any other human being, might conclude that it is the nature of human beings to grow continually taller and wiser in an indefinite progress towards perfection; and this generalization would be just as well founded as the generalization which evolutionists base upon the previous history of this planet.”

HumansWellsMightWould BeAgeEarthScienceGrowsHuman BeingsHistoryProgressYouthPlanetsEvolutionPerfectionTwentiesPhilosopherExtrasWiserTwenty OneGeneralizationHuman EvolutionGeneralisation
Book:Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections
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“It is, I believe, justifiable to make the generalization that anything an organic chemist can synthesize can be made without him. All he does is increase the probability that given reactions will 'go.' So it is quite reasonable to assume that given sufficient time and proper conditions, nucleotides, amino acids, proteins, and nucleic acids will arise by reactions that, though less probable, are as inevitable as those by which the organic chemist fulfills his predictions. So why not self-duplicating virus-like systems capable of further evolution?”

BelieveDoeMadeSelfScienceGivenI BelieveConditionsEvolutionCapableIncreaseAssumingReactionsAriseInevitableSufficientReasonableWhy NotPredictionsProbabilityAcidVirusesProteinChemistGeneralizationAmino Acids
Author:George Wells Beadle
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“Crime seems to change character when it crosses a bridge or a tunnel. In the city, crime is taken as emblematic of class and race. In the suburbs though, it's intimate and psychological, a mystery resist to generalization, a mystery of the individual soul.”

SoulCharacterSeemsIndividualChangeRaceCitiesClassTakenMysteryCrimeCrossesCriminalsPsychologicalBridgesIntimateTunnelsSuburbsGeneralizationCrime And CriminalsCriminals Crime
Book:WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
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“The first man who said "fire burns" was employing scientific method, at any rate if he had allowed himself to be burnt several times. This man had already passed through the two stages of observation and generalization. He had not, however, what scientific technique demands - a careful choice of significant facts on the one hand, and, on the other hand, various means of arriving at laws otherwise than my mere generalization.”

IfsMenFirstsMeanSaidTwoFactsHandsLawScienceChoicesFireStageDemandMethodMereRateCarefulVariousTechniqueSignificantObservationArrivingScientific MethodGeneralizationEmploying
Author:Bertrand Russell
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“[This] may prove to be the beginning of some embracing generalization, which will throw light, not only on radioactive processes, but on elements in general and the Periodic Law.... Chemical homogeneity is no longer a guarantee that any supposed element is not a mixture of several of different atomic weights, or that any atomic weight is not merely a mean number.”

MayMeanDifferentLightLawScienceProcessNumbersProveElementsDiscoveryWeightGuaranteesChemicalsMixturesGuarantees ThatGeneralizationHomogeneity
Author:Frederick Soddy
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“In the field one has to face a chaos of facts, some of which are so small that they seem insignificant; others loom so large that they are hard to encompass with one synthetic glance. But in this crude form they are not scientific facts at all; they are absolutely elusive, and can be fixed only by interpretation, by seeing them sub specie aeternitatis, by grasping what is essential in them and fixing this. Only laws and generalizations are scientific facts, and field work consists only and exclusively in the interpretation of the chaotic social reality, in subordinating it to general rules.”

HardFactsRealitySeemsFacesFormLawScienceSocialSeeingFieldsEssentialsChaosFixedInterpretationGlancesInsignificantChaoticElusiveCrudeFixingGraspingGeneralizationSyntheticScientific Facts
Author:Bronislaw Malinowski
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