“The lower classes of men, though they do not think it worthwhile to record what they perceive, nevertheless perceive everything that is worth noting; the difference between them and a man of learning often consists in nothing more than the latter's facility for expression.” ThinkingMenDifferencesClassRecordsExpressionObservationPerceiveLatterWorthwhileNeverthelessFacilityLower Class Author:Georg C. Lichtenberg
“[T]ruly grand and powerful theories [...] do not and cannot rest upon single observations. Evolution is an inference from thousands of independent sources, the only conceptual structure that can make unified sense of all this disparate information. The failure of a particular claim usually records a local error, not the bankruptcy of a central theory. [...] If I mistakenly identify your father's brother as your own dad, you don't become genealogically rootless and created de novo. You still have a father; we just haven't located him properly.” IfsStillsFatherPowerfulRecordsHavensInformationParticularBrotherTheorySourceEvolutionDadClaimsIndependentStructureErrorsLocalsObservationBankruptcyUnifiedInference Author:Stephen Jay Gould
“To make our position clearer, we may formulate it in another way. Let us call a proposition which records an actual or possible observation an experiential proposition. Then we may say that it is the mark of a genuine factual proposition, not that it should be equivalent to an experiential proposition, or any finite number of experiential propositions, but simply that some experiential propositions can be deduced from it in conjunction with certain other premises without being deducible from those other premises alone.” WayShouldMayCertainNumbersRecordsPositionMarkGenuineObservationPropositionsFiniteAnother WayPremisesFactualConjunctionsFinite Number Author:A.J. Ayer
“Antiquities, or remnants of history, are, as was said, tanquam tabula naufragii: when industrious persons, by an exact and scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books that concern not story, and the like, do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time.” PersonsSaidBookStoriesNamesRecordsEvidenceConcernTraditionObservationPassagesFragmentsMonumentDiligenceAntiquityIndustriousRemnantsDeluge Book:The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England: A New Edition: Source: The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England: A New Edition:
“It does seem that the sea ice is returning to 'average' after the record lows of 2007 and 2008. There has been a definite recovery trend since then, so far from being a progression towards ice free summers it seems that it was a temporary dip. The recent observations do make the 2007 projections that the region would be ice free by 2013 look very unrealistic. Given what is happening only the foolish would look many years into the future and predict ice free summers now.” YearsLooksDoeHas BeensSeemsWould BeGivenRecordsSeaSummerLowsHappeningsAverageFoolishRecoveryObservationIceRegionsTemporaryTrendsDefiniteProjectionProgressionDip Author:David Robert Whitehouse