“[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
“It is possible to express the laws of thermodynamics in the form of independent principles , deduced by induction from the facts of observation and experiment, without reference to any hypothesis as to the occult molecular operations with which the sensible phenomena may be conceived to be connected; and that course will be followed in the body of the present treatise. But, in giving a brief historical sketch of the progress of thermodynamics, the progress of the hypothesis of thermic molecular motions cannot be wholly separated from that of the purely inductive theory.” GivingMayFactsBodyFormLawCoursesPrinciplesProgressTheoryIndependentHistoricalConnectedExperimentsObservationOperationsPhenomenonSensibleHypothesisOccultThermodynamics Book:A Manual of the Steam Engine and Other Prime Movers by William John Macquorn Rankine Source: A Manual of the Steam Engine and Other Prime Movers by William John Macquorn Rankine
“July 4, 1776 was the historic day on which the representatives of three millions of people vocalized Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill, which gave notice to the world that they proposed to establish an independent nation on the theory that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” PeopleMenWorldCertainThreeNationsLibertyMillionsRightsTheoryEqualIndependentCreatorPursuitHillsRepresentativesHistoricPursuit Of HappinessJulyInalienable RightsBunkersLife Liberty And The Pursuit Of HappinessJuly 4LexingtonBunker Hill Author:Calvin Coolidge
“Man can be an atheist only in theory, not in practice, because the universe is too frightening and too chaotic to be too independent!” MenUniversePracticeTheoryIndependentAtheistFrighteningChaotic Author:Mehmet Murat Ildan
“No theory of reality compatible with quantum theory can require spatially separate events to be independent.” RealityEventsTheoryIndependentQuantumCompatibleQuantum Theory Author:John Stewart Bell
“Our decisions need not be seen as resting on procedures that are merely instrumental in making judgments that are reliably truth-tracking. The procedures might be more directly related than that to truths about what is right or good, or about what we ought to do, or to principles that tell us what is true about these matters. And I have no metaphysical theory about the truth-conditions of such truths, except to say that as objective truths, they must be independent of the attitudes, decisions or actions that they are supposed to justify or for which they are to offer reasons.” NeedsMatterReasonMightActionDecisionAttitudePrinciplesConditionsTheoryOughtOffersJudgmentIndependentObjectivesRelatedJustifyMetaphysicalProceduresTrackingObjective Truth Author:Allen W. Wood
“That Hegel's theory is derivative from Fichte's does not prevent it from being strikingly original and of independent value.” DoeValuesTheoryOriginalsIndependentDerivativesHegel Author:Allen W. Wood