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Science Quotes

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Science Quotes

“I see no reason to believe that a creator of protoplasm or primeval matter, if such there be, has any reason to be interested in our insignificant race in a tiny corner of the universe, and still less in us, as still more insignificant individuals. Again, I see no reason why the belief that we are insignificant or fortuitous should lessen our faith.”

IfsShouldBelieveStillsMatterReasonScienceUniverseIndividualBeliefInterestRaceCreatorCornersTinyReason WhyNo ReasonInsignificantPrimevalFortuitous
Author:Rosalind Franklin
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“While the dogmatist is harmful, the sceptic is useless ...; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or of ignorance. Knowledge is not so precise a concept as is commonly thought. Instead of saying 'I know this', we ought to say 'I more or less know something more or less like this'. ... Knowledge in practical affairs has not the certainty or the precision of arithmetic.”

KnowsShouldPhilosophyScienceCertainKnowledgeKnowingIgnoranceOughtConceptsAffairPracticalsCertaintyUselessNot KnowingPrecisePrecisionArithmeticSceptic
Author:Bertrand Russell
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“Hitherto the principle of causality was universally accepted as an indispensable postulate of scientific research, but now we are told by some physicists that it must be thrown overboard. The fact that such an extraordinary opinion should be expressed in responsible scientific quarters is widely taken to be significant of the all-round unreliability of human knowledge. This indeed is a very serious situation.”

ShouldHumansFactsScienceResponsibilitySituationOpinionPrinciplesKnowledgeTakenAcceptanceSeriousResearchResponsibleExtraordinaryRoundsAcceptedSignificantThrownQuartersIndispensablePhysicistScientific ResearchHuman KnowledgeCausalityOverboardUnreliability
Book:The new science: 3 complete works: Where is science going? The universe in the light of modern physics; The philosophy of physics
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“Although I was four years at the University [of Wisconsin], I did not take the regular course of studies, but instead picked out what I thought would be most useful to me, particularly chemistry, which opened a new world, mathematics and physics, a little Greek and Latin, botany and and geology. I was far from satisfied with what I had learned, and should have stayed longer.”

WorldShouldYearsLittlesWould BeScienceCoursesStudyFourShould HaveMathematicsUniversityPhysicsSatisfiedGreekLatinChemistryNew WorldFour YearsGeologyWisconsinBotany
Book:Essential Muir
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“So erst the Sage [Pythagoras] with scientific truth In Grecian temples taught the attentive youth; With ceaseless change how restless atoms pass From life to life, a transmigrating mass; How the same organs, which to-day compose The poisonous henbane, or the fragrant rose, May with to-morrow's sun new forms compile, Frown in the Hero, in the Beauty smile. Whence drew the enlighten'd Sage the moral plan, That man should ever be the friend of man; Should eye with tenderness all living forms, His brother-emmets, and his sister-worms.”

MenShouldMayEyeFormScienceMoralSunPlansYouthTaughtBrotherHeroMassRoseTemplesAtomsOrgansTendernessSageWormsRestlessEnlighteningMorrowPoisonousScientific Truth
Author:Erasmus Darwin
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“However the machine would permit us to test the hypothesis for any special value of n. We could carry out such tests for a sequence of consecutive values n=2,3,.. up to, say, n=100. If the result of at least one test were negative, the hypothesis would prove to be false; otherwise our confidence in the hypothesis would increase, and we should feel encouraged to attempt establishing the hypothesis, instead of trying to construct a counterexample.”

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Author:Alfred Tarski
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“Like musicians who can read and write complicated scores in a world without sounds, for us mathematics is a source of delight, excitement, and even controversy which are hard to share with non mathematicians. In our small micro-cosmos we should ever seek the right balance between competition and solidarity, criticism and empathy, exclusion and inclusion.”

WorldShouldWritingHardScienceSoundShareSourceBalanceMusicianEmpathyCriticismMathematicsCompetitionDelightComplicatedExcitementScoreCosmosInclusionMathematicianSolidarityControversyExclusion
Author:Gil Kalai
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“THE COMPUTER IS JUST AN INSTRUMENT for doing faster what we already know how to do slower. All pretensions to computer intelligence and paradise-tomorrow promises should be toned down before the public turns away in disgust. And if that should happen, our civilization might not survive.”

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Book:Discrete Thoughts: Essays on Mathematics, Science and Philosophy
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“I think that local school districts - not the federal government - should make the decision about how they teach science, biology, economics. I want my kids to be taught about evolution; I want my kids to be taught about other theories.”

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Author:Bobby Jindal
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“In fact, books are still being published by the lunatic fringe with the same explanation. In case this book should be read by some fundamentalist searching for straws to prop up his prejudices, let me state categorically that all my experience (such as it is) has led me to an unqualified acceptance of evolution by natural selection as a sufficient explanation for what I have seen in the fossil record.”

ShouldStillsBookStatesFactsScienceNaturalCasesRecordsAcceptanceEvolutionLet MePrejudiceExplanationSufficientSelectionFossilsFringeLunaticNatural SelectionPropsStrawsFundamentalistUnqualified
Author:D. V. Ager
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“If [science] tends to thicken the crust of ice on which, as it were, we are skating, it is all right. If it tries to find, or professes to have found, the solid ground at the bottom of the water it is all wrong. Our business is with the thickening of this crust by extending our knowledge downward from above, as ice gets thicker while the frost lasts; we should not try to freeze upwards from the bottom.”

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Book:The Essential Samuel Butler
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“Nature never makes excellent things, for mean or no uses: and it is hardly to be conceived, that our infinitely wise Creator, should make so admirable a Faculty, as the power of Thinking, that Faculty which comes nearest the Excellency of his own incomprehensible Being, to be so idlely and uselesly employ'd, at least 1/4 part of its time here, as to think constantly, without remembering any of those Thoughts, without doing any good to it self or others, or being anyway useful to any other part of Creation.”

ThinkingShouldMeanSelfUseRememberScienceUnderstandingNatureWiseCreationExcellenceCreatorExcellentFacultyAdmirable
Book:An essay concerning human understanding. Also extr. from the author's works, i. Analysis of mr. Locke's doctrine of ideas [&c.].
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“The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should have the opportunity of teaching itself. What does it matter if the pupil know a little more or a little less? A boy who leaves school knowing much, but hating his lessons, will soon have forgotten all he ever learned; while another who had acquired a thirst for knowledge, even if he had learned little, would soon teach himself more than the first ever knew.”

IfsKnowsShouldFirstsChildrenLittlesDoeImportantMatterSchoolScienceHateOpportunityEducationBoysTeachKnowingTeachingTaughtLessonsShould HaveImportant ThingsForgottenThirstPupilsDoes It MatterThirst For Knowledge
Author:John Lubbock
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“The theory that gravitational attraction is inversely proportional to the square of the distance leads by remorseless logic to the conclusion that the path of a planet should be an ellipse .... It is this logical thinking that is the real meat of the physical sciences. The social scientist keeps the skin and throws away the meat.... His theorems no more follow from his postulates than the hunches of a horse player follow logically from the latest racing news. The result is guesswork clad in long flowing robes of gobbledygook.”

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Author:Anthony Standen
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“If this "critical openminded attitude" ... is wanted, the question at once arises, Is it science that should be studied in order to achieve it? Why not study law? A judge has to do everything that a scientist is exhorted to do in the way of withholding judgment until all the facts are in, and then judging impartially on the merits of the case as well as he can. ... Why not a course in Sherlock Holmes? The detectives, or at least the detective-story writers, join with the scientists in excoriating "dogmatic prejudice, lying, falsification of facts, and data, and willful fallacious reasoning."”

IfsWayShouldWellsFactsStoriesWantedLawScienceLyingOrderCoursesAttitudeCasesStudyAchieveJudgingJudgmentScientistPrejudiceCriticalAriseDataMeritReasoningWhy NotDetectivesHolmesDogmaticWithholdingDetective StoriesStory WritersFalsification
Author:Anthony Standen
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“In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”

KnowsShouldMindHumansSometimesHappensLastsScienceReligionChangeInterestingViewsLearningHappenedPositionHumilityEvidenceArgumentScientistPainfulPhysicsHeartacheRecallsSkepticismLast TimeMistakenDnaScience And ReligionSkepticalSkepticScience And TechnologyArt And ScienceScientific MethodModern SciencePhilosophy Of ScienceNatural ScienceScience ReligionPhysical ScienceScientific TruthGreat ScienceScientific FactsScience PhysicsGod And SciencePale Blue DotScientific EvidenceGood ScienceSubtle AtheistScience LoveTheoretical PhysicsBest ScienceDiscovery In ScienceAdvances In ScienceNuclear Arms RaceInformation ScienceProgress In ScienceScientist LifeScience BooksEarth ScienceAdvancement Of ScienceFuture ScienceAtomic StructureScience FairImportance Of Science
Author:Carl Sagan
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“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

LifeGivingShouldWritingHumansProblemMotivationalAbleScienceOrderDiesCultureFightingHuman BeingsKnowledgeLearningPlansAdviceDyingDesignBuildingWallBalanceComfortComputerProgramAccountsManagementAtheistSolveBonesShipsCooksMealsInsectsEquationsBadassInvasionSonnetButchersDiapersHogManureSpecializationTastyStranger In A Strange LandRenaissance Man
Author:Robert A. Heinlein
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“Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism.”

ShouldMayLongUseScienceNationsUnderstandingTermLeaderMoralTalentMoralityIntellectualCriticismLong TermSuicidalShort TermCriteriaConstructiveConvenientVigorous
Book:Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium
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“To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.”

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Author:Charles Darwin
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