Science & Reason Quotes — page 45

I have come to believe that the motion of the Earth cannot be detected by any optical experiment.

A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather.

The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural …

[T]he task of science can never end till man ceases to be, till history is no longer made, and development itself ceases.

When the properties of an ideal model have been worked out by rigorous mathematics, all the underlying assumptions being clearly understood, then it becomes possible to say that such-and-such properties and laws lead precisely to …

In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither.

Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules

The field of science is unlimited; its material is endless, every group of natural phenomena, every phase of social life, every stage of past or present development is material for science. The unity of all science consists alone in its …

I think that science would never have achieved much progress if it had always imagined unknown obstacles hidden round every corner. At least we may peer gingerly round the corner, and perhaps we shall find there is nothing very formidable …

By a clock we understand anything characterized by a phenomenon passing periodically through identical phases so that we must assume, by the principle of sufficient reason, that all that happens in a given period is identical with all that …

The scientific method is one and the same in all branches, and that method is the method of all logically trained minds. In this respect the great classics of science are often the most intelligible of books, and... are far better worth …

The present revolution of scientific thought follows in natural sequence on the great revolutions at earlier epochs in the history of science

If any... work gives a description of phenomena that appeals to... imagination rather than to... reason, then it is bad science.

Minds trained to scientific methods are less likely to be led by mere appeal to the passions or by blind emotional excitement

[T]he state may be reasonably called upon to place instruction in pure science within the reach of all its citizens. ...The scientific habit of mind is one which may be acquired by all, and the readiest means of attaining to it ought to be …

characteristic of what may be termed the scientific frame of mind.

The scientific man has above all things to strive at self-elimination in his judgments

The views expressed in this Grammar on the fundamental concepts of science, especially on those of force and matter, have formed part of the author's teaching since he was first called upon (1882) to think how the elements of dynamical …

these works possess little, if any, educational value; they neither encourage the growth of logical clearness nor form any exercise in scientific method.

Anything more hopelessly illogical than the statements with regard to force and matter current in elementary text-books of science, it is difficult to imagine

[T]his deficient organisation will not only in time be perceived by the enemy, but... has already had a very discouraging influence both on scientific recruits and on intelligent laymen.

The obscurity which envelops the principia of science is not only due to an historical evolution influenced by the authority which attaches even to the phraseology used by great discoverers, but to the fact that science, as long as it had …

There are periods in the growth of science when it is well to turn our attention from its imposing superstructure and to carefully examine its foundations. The present book is primarily intended as a criticism of the fundamental concepts …

[P]rogress... enables me to define several... conceptions much more accurately than was possible in 1892, and to indicate, if only in vague outline, what a fascinating field is being here transferred from the synoptic to the precise …