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Method Quotes

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Method Quotes

“Neumann, to a physicist seeking help with a difficult problem: Simple. This can be solved by using the method of characteristics. Physicist: I'm afraid I don't understand the method of characteristics. Neumann: In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.”

Helping Problem Science Used Difficult Understanding Simple Mathematics Method Seeking Characteristics Physicist Difficult Problems Seeking Help

Author:John von Neumann

“DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.”

Science Humour Method Errors Discussion

Book:The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling. The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese indeed.”

Source: The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World

“Intelligence is important in psychology for two reasons. First, it is one of the most scientifically developed corners of the subject, giving the student as complete a view as is possible anywhere of the way scientific method can be applied to psychological problems. Secondly, it is of immense practical importance, educationally, socially, and in regard to physiology and genetics.”

“There are some modern practitioners, who declaim against medical theory in general, not considering that to think is to theorize; and that no one can direct a method of cure to a person labouring under disease, without thinking, that is, without theorizing; and happy therefore is the patient, whose physician possesses the best theory.”

Thinking Persons Science Modern Theory Disease Direct Method Patient Medical Cures Physicians Considering

Book:Zoonomia; or, The laws of organic life ...

Source: Zoonomia; or, The laws of organic life ...

“Psychic perception is a much more efficient and accurate method of seeing and knowing reality.”

Reality Science Knowing Seeing Buddhism Perception Method Efficient Accurate Psychics

Author:Frederick Lenz

“I feel that one should employ methods that reflect the physics of the problem at hand rather than the methods one happens to know.”

Knows Feels Should Problem Hands Happens Science Mathematics Method Physics

Author:Lawrence Shepp

“The Method of Bisection is a sophisticated version of a tool used in fifth grade called "Guess and Check".”

Science Used Tools Mathematics Method Checks Versions Grades Sophisticated Fifth Fifth Grade

Author:Richard A. Falk

“This is a rather unusual situation in physics. We perform approximate calculations which are valid only in some regime and this gives us the exact answer. This is a theorist's heaven- exact results with approximate methods.”

Giving Science Heaven Answers Results Situation Mathematics Method Physics Unusual Regimes Calculations Theorists

Author:Nathan Seiberg

“The insidiousness of science lies in its claim to be not a subject, but a method. You could ignore a subject; no subject is all-inclusive. But a method can plausibly be applied to anything within the field of consciousness.”

Science Lying Consciousness Subjects Fields Claims Method

Author:Katharine Fullerton Gerould

“Philosophers of science constantly discuss theories and representation of reality, but say almost nothing about experiment, technology, or the use of knowledge to alter the world. This is odd, because 'experimental method' used to be just another name for scientific method.... I hope [to] initiate a Back-to-Bacon movement, in which we attend more seriously to experimental science. Experimentation has a life of its own.”

Source: Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science

“Scientific method is the way to truth, but it affords, even in principle, no unique definition of truth. Any so-called pragmatic definition of truth is doomed to failure equally.”

Way Truth Science Principles Truth Is Unique Method Definitions Doomed Pragmatic Scientific Method Pragmatism

Book:Word and Object

Source: Word and Object

“Unlike Descartes, we own and use our beliefs of the moment, even in the midst of philosophizing, until by what is vaguely called scientific method we change them here and there for the better. Within our own total evolving doctrine, we can judge truth as earnestly and absolutely as can be, subject to correction, but that goes without saying.”

Moments Use Truth Science Belief Subjects Judging Method Doctrine Evolve Midst Here And There Corrections Scientific Method

Book:Word and Object

Source: Word and Object

“What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.”

Science Perception Method Exposed Questioning Quantum Physics Quantum Mechanics Right Questions Experimental Science

Author:Werner Heisenberg

“The second [argument about motion] is the so-called Achilles, and it amounts to this, that in a race the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead. Statement of the Achilles and the Tortoise paradox in the relation of the discrete to the continuous.; perhaps the earliest example of the reductio ad absurdum method of proof.”

Firsts Science Race Example Amount Argument Relation Mathematics Method Proof Statements Paradox Ads Runners Pursued Achilles Tortoises Discrete

Author:Zeno of Elea

“They are the best physicians, who being great in learning most incline to the traditions of experience, or being distinguished in practice do not reflect the methods and generalities of art.”

Art Science Education Practice Tradition Method Physicians Distinguished Incline Generalities

Author:Francis Bacon

“Dilbert: Evolution must be true because it is a logical conclusion of the scientific method. Dogbert: But science is based on the irrational belief that because we cannot perceive reality all at once, things called time and cause and effect exist. Dilbert: That's what I was taught and that's what I believe. Dogbert: Sounds cultish.”

“Moreover, the works already known are due to chance and experiment rather than to sciences; for the sciences we now possess are merely systems for the nice ordering and setting forth of things already invented; not methods of invention or directions for new works.”

Science Chance Known Knowledge Nice Accounts Method Dues Experiments Invention Setting Settings New Work

Book:The works

Source: The works

“He who seeks for methods without having a definite problem in mind seeks in the most part in vain.”

Mind Problem Science Method Vain Definite

Author:David Hilbert

“How thoroughly it is ingrained in mathematical science that every real advance goes hand in hand with the invention of sharper tools and simpler methods which, at the same time, assist in understanding earlier theories and in casting aside some more complicated developments.”

Real Hands Science Time Understanding Theory Development Tools Mathematics Method Complicated Math Invention Mathematical Casting Hand In Hand

Author:David Hilbert

“But although in theory physicists realize that their conclusions are ... not certainly true, this ... does not really sink into their consciousness. Nearly all the time ... they ... act as if Science were indisputably True, and what's more, as if only science were true.... Any information obtained otherwise than by the scientific method, although it may be true, the scientists will call "unscientific," using this word as a smear word, by bringing in the connotation from its original [Greek] meaning, to imply that the information is false, or at any rate slightly phony.”

Ifs May Doe Science Realizing Consciousness Information Theory Scientist Originals Method Rate Conclusion Being True Greek Physicist Phony Scientific Method Connotation

Author:Anthony Standen

“Psychologists pay lip service to the scientific method, and use it whenever it is convenient; but when it isn't they make wild leaps of their uncontrolled fancy.”

Use Science Pay Method Lips Fancy Leap Convenient Psychologist Scientific Method Lip Service

Author:Anthony Standen

“Science is a method to keep yourself from kidding yourself.”

Science Method Kidding Yourself

Author:Edwin Land

“There is one thing even more vital to science than intelligent methods; and that is, the sincere desire to find out the truth, whatever it may be.”

May Truth Science Desire Technology One Thing Logic Intelligent Method Witty Sincere

Author:Charles Pierce

“Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20 - 20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you ought to go.”

Thinking Knows Science Knowledge Seeing Ought Method Traditional Testing Hindsight Scientific Method You Think You Know Zen Motorcycle Maintenance

Author:Robert M. Pirsig

“But there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science.”

Science Method Patterns Recognition

Book:Skeptic: Viewing the World with a Rational Eye

Source: Skeptic: Viewing the World with a Rational Eye

“Any one who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin.”

States Science Courses Sin Powerful Humorous Dignity Method Witty Computer Science Arithmetic Randomness Statistician

Author:John von Neumann

“It's so hard to believe in anything anymore, you know what I mean? It's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, 'cause it seems so mythological, and seems so arbitrary; and then on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. I guess I wouldn't believe in anything if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.”

Ifs Believe Mean Hard Humor Hands Seems Funny Science Watches Virtue Pure Lucky Method Mood Metaphysics Arbitrary Astrology Hard To Believe Empiricism

Author:Steve Martin

“Faith is universal. Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary. Some of us pray to Jesus, some of us go to Mecca, some of us study subatomic particles. In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves.”

Ends Science Faith Jesus Understanding Religious Study Greater Praying Universal Method Arbitrary Particles Angels And Demons Mecca Subatomic Particles

Book:Angels & Demons - Movie Tie-In: A Novel

Source: Angels & Demons - Movie Tie-In: A Novel

“If we are to achieve things never before accomplished we must employ methods never before attempted”

Ifs Motivational Science Change Achieve Method Accomplished

Author:Francis Bacon

“If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.”

“Science is merely an extremely powerful method of winnowing what's true from what feels good.”

Feels Science Powerful Method Feel Good

Author:Carl Sagan

“Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense only as far as the guardsman's cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.”

May Science Common Cutting Method Clubs Common Sense Organized Latter Savages Veteran Thrust Recruit

Author:Thomas Huxley

“The true method of discovery is like the flight of an aeroplane. It starts from the ground of particular observation; it makes a flight in the thin air of imaginative generalization; and it again lands for renewed observation rendered acute by rational interpretation.”

Science Air Land Particular Discovery Method Rational Flight Observation Interpretation Airplane Imaginative Aeroplanes Generalization Thin Air

Book:Process and Reality

Source: Process and Reality

“I simply go with what works. And what works is the healthy skepticism embodied in the scientific method. Believe me, if the Bible had ever been shown to be a rich source of scientific answers and enlightenment, we would be mining it daily for cosmic discovery.”

Ifs Believe Would Be Science Spirituality Religious Answers Rich Source Healthy Enlightenment Discovery Method Cosmic Believe In Me Skepticism Scientific Method Mining

Book:The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist

Source: The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist

“I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God's, or Nature's method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way.”

Way Years Stills Science Process Nature Happened Events Creation Evolution Years Ago Method Billions Creationist Nothing Makes Sense

Author:Theodosius Dobzhansky

“Physio-philosophy has to show how, and in accordance indeed with what laws, the Material took its origin; and, therefore, how something derived its existence from nothing. It has to portray the first periods of the world's development from nothing; how the elements and heavenly bodies originated; in what method by self-evolution into higher and manifold forms, they separated into minerals, became finally organic, and in Man attained self-consciousness.”

“That there is no such thing as the scientific method, one might easily discover by asking several scientists to define it. One would find, I am sure, that no two of them would exactly agree. Indeed, no two scientists work and think in just the same ways.”

Thinking Way Two Might Science Hard Work Scientist Asking Agree Method Agreement Scientific Method

Book:Science in the Making

Source: Science in the Making

“The invention of the scientific method and science is, I'm sure we'll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked. If it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn't withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn't seem to work like that.”

“In 1847 I gave an address at Newton, Mass., before a Teachers' Institute conducted by Horace Mann. My subject was grasshoppers. I passed around a large jar of these insects, and made every teacher take one and hold it while I was speaking. If any one dropped the insect, I stopped till he picked it up. This was at that time a great innovation, and excited much laughter and derision. There can be no true progress in the teaching of natural science until such methods become general.”

Ifs Made Science Natural Teacher Progress Teaching Subjects Mass Laughter Innovation Method Excited Excitement Addresses Insects Newton Institute Jars Natural Science Derision Grasshoppers

Author:Louis Agassiz

“Liebig was not a teacher in the ordinary sense of the word. Scientifically productive himself in an unusual degree, and rich in chemical ideas, he imparted the latter to his advanced pupils, to be put by them to experimental proof; he thus brought his pupils gradually to think for themselves, besides showing and explaining to them the methods by which chemical problems might be solved experimentally.”

Thinking Ideas Problem Might Science Rich Teacher Degrees Ordinary Method Proof Experiments Productive Latter Chemicals Unusual Explaining Pupils

Author:Hermann Kolbe

“The decisive step in evolution, the first step toward macroevolution, the step from one species to another, requires another evolutionary method than that of sheer accumulation of micromutations.”

Firsts Science Steps Evolution Method Species First Steps Sheer Accumulation

Author:Richard Goldschmidt

“If a mathematician wishes to disparage the work of one of his colleagues, say, A, the most effective method he finds for doing this is to ask where the results can be applied. The hard pressed man, with his back against the wall, finally unearths the researches of another mathematician B as the locus of the application of his own results. If next B is plagued with a similar question, he will refer to another mathematician C. After a few steps of this kind we find ourselves referred back to the researches of A, and in this way the chain closes.”

Ifs Men Way Kind Hard Science Next Asks Wish Results Steps Hard Work Wall Research Method Chains Application Mathematician Colleagues Back Against The Wall

Author:Alfred Tarski

“In the discovery of lemmas the best aid is a mental aptitude for it. For we may see many who are quick at solutions and yet do not work by method ; thus Cratistus in our time was able to obtain the required result from first principles, and those the fewest possible, but it was his natural gift which helped him to the discovery.”

Firsts May Able Science Natural Ability Results Principles Hard Work Solutions Discovery Method Aids Our Time Aptitude Natural Gifts

Author:Proclus

“It is impossible not to feel stirred at the thought of the emotions of man at certain historic moments of adventure and discovery - Columbus when he first saw the Western shore, Pizarro when he stared at the Pacific Ocean, Franklin when the electric spark came from the string of his kite, Galileo when he first turned his telescope to the heavens. Such moments are also granted to students in the abstract regions of thought, and high among them must be placed the morning when Descartes lay in bed and invented the method of co-ordinate geometry.”

“To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.”

Science Results Method Planning Bother

Book:The Best Of Ambrose Bierce: The Damned Thing + An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge + The Devil's Dictionary + Chickamauga (4 Classics in 1 Book)

Source: The Best Of Ambrose Bierce: The Damned Thing + An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge + The Devil's Dictionary + Chickamauga (4 Classics in 1 Book)

“For there is a great difference in delivery of the mathematics , which are the most abstracted of knowledges, and policy , which is the most immersed. And howsoever contention hath been moved , touching a uniformity of method in multiformity of matter, yet we see how that opinion, besides the weakness of it, hath been of ill desert towards learning, as that which taketh the way to reduce learning to certain empty and barren generalities; being but the very husks and shells of sciences, all the kernel being forced out and expulsed with the torture and press of the method.”

“Science is a method of logical analysis of nature's operations. It has lessened human anxiety about the cosmos by demonstrating the materiality of nature's forces, and their frequent predictability.”

Humans Science Force Nature Anxiety Logic Accounts Method Operations Analysis Cosmos Logical Demonstrating Predictability Materiality

Book:Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism

Source: Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism

“Science is not a system of certain, or -established, statements; nor is it a system which steadily advances towards a state of finality... And our guesses are guided by the unscientific, the metaphysical (though biologically explicable) faith in laws, in regularities which we can uncover-discover. Like Bacon, we might describe our own contemporary science-'the method of reasoning which men now ordinarily apply to nature'-as consisting of 'anticipations, rash and premature' and as 'prejudices'.”

Men States Might Law Science Certain Nature Accounts Prejudice Method Statements Contemporary Reasoning Biology Anticipation Metaphysical In-laws Premature Regularity Finality

Author:Karl Popper

“We know the laws of trial and error, of large numbers and probabilities. We know that these laws are part of the mathematical and mechanical fabric of the universe, and that they are also at play in biological processes. But, in the name of the experimental method and out of our poor knowledge, are we really entitled to claim that everything happens by chance, to the exclusion of all other possibilities?”