Scientific - Quotes
How do I really feel about the possibility that all my actions, and those of my friends, are ultimately governed by mathematical principles (...)? I can live with that. I would, indeed, prefer to have these actions controlled by something residing in some (...) aspect of Plato`s fabulous mathematical world than to have them be subject to the kind of simplistic base motives, such as pleasure-seeking, personal greed, or aggressive violence, that many would argue to be the implications of a strictly scientific standpoint.
No matter how unlikely an event is, it doesn`t mean that a supernatural explanation would be more likely, especially when you consider the fact that in order for us to accept such an explanation, we have to agree that scientific models of nature that have consistently and accurately explained and predicted many natural events are completely wrong simply because we have witnessed an unlikely event.
The ability to understand something before it`s observed is at the heart of scientific thinking.
That which seems intuitive to us now is the result of scientific and philosophical elaborations in the past.
Abstract thought can anticipate by centuries hypotheses that find a use - or confirmation - in scientific inquiry.
In the history of science, ever since the famous trial of Galileo, it has repeatedly been claimed that scientific truth cannot be reconciled with the religious interpretation of the world. Although I an now convinced that scientific truth is unassailable in its own field, I have never found it possible to dismiss the content of religious thinking as simply part of an outmoded phase in the consciousness of mankind, a part we shall have to give up from now on, Thus in the course of my life I have repeatedly been compelled to ponder on the relationship of these two regions of though, for I have never been able to doubt the reality of that to which they point.
Scientific inquiry shouldn`t stop just because a reasonable explanation has apparently been found.
A theory in science is a logical creation. It reflects the most accurate experimental observations and the best understanding of how the world works. Yet a scientific theory doesn’t necessarily represent absolute truth. It can only capture the state of our knowledge so far. There’s every chance that a new piece of evidence will come to light that disproves the theory, and sends the theoreticians back to the drawing board.
Human knowledge is doubling every ten years. In the past decade, more scientific knowledge has been created than in all of human history.
The history of science is riddled with abject failures of scientific objectivity. But that is just the point-these have been failures of science, discovered and corrected by-what, religion? No, by good science.
Science for me is very close to art. Scientific discovery is an irrational act. It’s an intuition which turns out to be reality at the end of it - and I see no difference between a scientist developing a marvellous discovery and an artist making a painting.
I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.
A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections - a mere heart of stone.
No nation, no religion, no economic system, no body of knowledge, is likely to have all the answers for our survival. There must be many social systems that would work far better than any now in existence. In the scientific tradition, our task is to find them.