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Science

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“I was always told that building a scientific career was about securing grants and publishing papers, not improving health care or engaging with policy-makers. And when I questioned these assumptions, saying I wanted to impact health care directly, some people questioned whether I was truly committed to being a scientist.”
Julie Makani (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Normal science, the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend almost all their time, is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like. Normal science often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments.”
Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You were right. We should never have created science. It brought the twilight of the race.” “I never said that. The race brought its own destruction, through misuse of science. Our culture was scientific anyway, in all except its psychological basis. It’s up to us to take that last and hardest step. If we do, the race may yet survive.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“While it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Religion and Science (1935), Ch. IX: Science of Ethics.
“Many scientists deeply involved in the exploration of the solar system (myself among them) were first turned in that direction by science fiction. And the fact that some of that science fiction was not of the highest quality is irrelevant. Ten-year-olds do not read the scientific literature.”
Carl Sagan (1934–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The progress of science requires the growth of understanding in both directions, downward from the whole to the parts and upward from the parts to the whole. A reductionist philosophy, arbitrarily proclaiming that the growth of understanding must go only in one direction, makes no scientific sense. Indeed, dogmatic philosophical beliefs of any kind have no place in science.”
Freeman Dyson (1923–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Scientific truth is characterized by its exactness and the certainty of its predictions. But these admirable qualities are contrived by science at the cost of remaining on a plane of secondary problems. leaving intact the ultimate and decisive questions. … Yet science is but a small part of the human mind and organism. Where it stops, man does not stop.”
José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Finally, learn something about the history of science, or at a minimum the history of your own branch of science. The least important reason for this is that the history may actually be of some use to you in your own scientific work.”
Steven Weinberg (1933–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unlike science, an ideology is constructed of conventional ambiguous expressions, which require interpretation. It is impossible to verify or experimentally confirm an ideological statement, one cannot refute these for they are meaningless. […] While arising, an ideology may have pretensions to be scientific. But having become an ideology, it loses all the major characteristics of science.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In order to act in a scientific manner, in order to act in a human manner at all, two things are necessary: fact and thought. Science does not consist only a finding the facts; nor is it enough only to think, however rationally. The processes of science are characteristic of human action in that they move by the union of empirical fact and rational thought, in a way which cannot be disentangled.”
Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... science, being science, can only wage total war. No traditional discourse has survived the scientific rationalization of their domain. All of them have been reduced to hokum, expelled from the courts, hounded from policy, from rationality altogether, and relegated to fantasy, which is to say, become commodities sold to balm the superstitious soul.”
R. Scott Bakker (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was my purpose to emphasize... to what extent the advance of natural science has helped to determine that of society... not only in economic changes... by the application of scientific discoveries, but... by the effect of the general frame of thought... [N]othing less would be adequate than a complete reevaluation of the reciprocal relations of science and society.”
John Desmond Bernal (1901–1971) said by 1971 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Although the formulations of science now offer the most advanced knowledge of nature, men continue to use obsolete forms of thought long discarded by scientific theory. In so far as these obsolete forms are superfluous for science, the fact that they persist violated the principle of the economy of thought, that characteristic trait of the bourgeois temper.”
Max Horkheimer (1895–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science in the past (and partly in the present), was dominated by one-sided empiricism. Only a collection of data and experiments were considered as being ‘scientific’ in biology (and psychology); forgetting that a mere accumulation of data, although steadily piling up, does not make a science.”
Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 100 cited in: Edward Goldsmith (1970-73/2013) Towards a Unified Science
“In seeking scientific understanding of the processes of information transfer we have had to go considerably outside the subject limits within which 'information science' as an academic subject is normally constrained... It has become increasingly clear that only by widening its “knowledge base” can information science establish a solid foundation for future development.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. v; As cited in: Lyn Robinson and David Bawden (2011).
“Creation is the only viable model of historical science confirmed by observational science in today's modern scientific era.”
Ken Ham (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the interest of scientific work, more and more formulations in the unified language of unified science are becoming increasingly precise. No term of unified science, however, is free from imprecision, since all terms are based on terms that are essential for protocol statements, whose imprecision must be immediately obvious to everyone.”
Otto Neurath (1882–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science can explain why we value things, but the same goes for values we reject as wrong. That's why scientific explanations of what we value cannot justify those values or serve as a basis to enforce them on others. Since science is the only possible source of justification, if it doesn't work to justify values, nothing does.”
Alexander Rosenberg (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The difference between these beliefs and the beliefs of religions is that scientific beliefs are methodological, not propositional...It is the absence of propositional beliefs that distinguishes science from a belief system. There is no proposition of the content of science that is accepted upon belief alone.”
Mordechai Ben-Ari (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science has also been analyzed by sociologists, political scientists and literary critics, who make little or no effort to understand the scientific subjects that they are analyzing. These critiques, known under the umbrella label of postmodernism, are seen by scientists as uninformed and pernicious in their effects on the real problems that arise in the relationship between science and society.”
Mordechai Ben-Ari (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Specialization ... hides behind an ideology that creates and sustains false dichotomies rigidly delineated by disciplinary boundaries. This ideology informs the view that "hard science," "objectivity," and "scientific rigor" must be divorced from the messy data of "soft science" and from the social and political practices that generate these categories in the first place.”
Donaldo Macedo (born 1950) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Literacy for Stupidification," in Literacies of Power: What Americans are Not Allowed to Know (1994), p. 20
“The scientific case for rejecting such bad science (or non-science) is indisputable. But that doesn’t make it persuasive to creationists or other religiously motivated evolution skeptics.”
Chris Mooney (born 1977) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Without a rigorous materials and methods and results section, however, the author hasn’t really earned the right to speculate on its implications, no?...pseudoscience, junk science, and anti-science are vastly different from views that use scientific fundamentals to challenge the status-quo.”
Cara Santa Maria (born 1982) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This award highlights the importance of neurodevelopmental disorders which are a great health problem worldwide, often diagnosed late and treated poorly, It affirms my contribution to science in Africa, strengthens advocacy for gender equity in science and education and makes me a role model for others, increasing my influence in the scientific community.”
Angelina Kakooza Mwesige (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the critical problems, not just in the history of science but in the philosophy and sociology of science, is the extent to which scientific facts are socially constructed rather than discovered.”
Stephen G. Brush (born 1935) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1995
“Too much law would obviously be intolerable to scientific pluralist theory. In a vitally important sense, value-free political science is logically committed to the norm of delegation of power because delegation of power is a self-fulfilling mechanism of prediction in modern political science.”
Theodore J. Lowi (1931–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you study natural science and the miracles of creation, if you don't turn into a mystic you are not a natural scientist.”
Albert Hofmann (1906–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The other thing people don't realise about science which differentiates it from religion is that, the most exciting thing about being a scientist is not knowing and being wrong. Because that means there is a lot left to learn.”
Lawrence M. Krauss (born 1954) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cosmic Connections" by Lawrence Krauss, 2011 (23:22-23:35)
“A scientist has the additional responsibility that comes with being a specialist: explaining science to the public, advising of its usefulness and benefits, and warning of its dangers and disadvantages. This is the responsibility of any specialist.”
Larkin Kerwin (1924–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The particular thing about science is to combine that [the dreams of obtaining power] with a retreat from the world. Other people want to obtain power by going out into the world, but the scientist really wants to obtain power by retreating from the world.”
Max Delbrück (1906–1981) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Max Delbruck (1978), p. 88. Oral History Project, California Institute of Technology Archives, Pasadena, California.
“One can’t read a great deal of theology without appreciating the mental dexterity of its practitioners when faced with hard problems. And as a scientist, I regret how much more we’d understand about nature had that dexterity been applied to science instead, or to any field involved in studying what’s real.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Software engineering is the part of computer science which is too difficult for the computer scientist.”
Friedrich Bauer (1924–2015) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bauer (1971) "Software Engineering." Information Processing: Proceedings of the IFIP Congress 1971, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, August 23-28, 1971.
“Science depends on outer experiment. Spirituality depends on inner searching and seeking. A scientist discovers the power that very often threatens even his own life. A spiritual seeker discovers the power that guides and moulds his life into a life of divine fulfilment.”
Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I consider one of the most important duties of any scientist the teaching of science to students and to the general public.”
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Academe and I" (May 1972), in The Tragedy of the Moon (1973), p. 224
“Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.”
Carl Sagan (1934–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science, by itself, has no moral dimension. The drug which cures when taken in small doses may kill when taken in excess. The nuclear energies that produce cheap electrical power when harnessed in a reactor may kill when abruptly released in a bomb. Thus, it does not make sense to ask a scientist whether his poison or his nuclear energy is “good” or “bad” for mankind.”
Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks on science and God, printed in an article, "Why I Believe", in the Sunday supplement, This Week, published by the Washington, DC. Star (July 18, 1965) and reprinted in the Congressional Record, vol. 111 (July 23…
“Do you know what an anthropologist is?” “Uh, I am sorry, ma’am—Margaret.” “It’s simpler than it sounds. An anthropologist is a scientist who studies how people live together.” Thorby looked doubtful. “This is a science?” “Sometimes I wonder. Actually, Thorby, it is a complicated study, because the patterns that men work out to live together seem unlimited.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ordinary citizen today assumes that science knows what makes the community clock tick; the scientist is equally sure that he does not.”
Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It has nothing to do with belief. It's a fact. It's the truth! As a scientist, I know it's true because science is based on skepticism. We consider all possibilities equally and decide on facts based on what stands up to empirical evidence. Which is how I know that you gomers are absolutely and totally wrong.”
Orl Unho (born 1976) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sex Ed (2005)
“If you were an artist or novelist, or a poet or somebody like that, nobody would think it odd if you worked in your own home. In science there's none of this at all. I'm almost the only independent scientist in Britain. Everybody else works in large institutions, universities, or industrial labs. Why should one expect scientists to work that way?”
James Lovelock (1919–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are answers that science isn’t able to provide about the natural world—the questions about why instead of the questions about how. I’m interested in the whys. I find many of those answers in the spiritual realm. That in no way compromises my ability to think rigorously as a scientist.”
Francis Collins (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“New truths in science are often condemned and 25 years ago it was very common and very popular for preachers to sneer at the evolution theory, but to-day it is no longer sneered at, for there is arising in all intelligent minds who have candidly examined the evidence the conviction that this was the method of creation, and no scientist of note to-day denies it.”
Benjamin Fish Austin (1850–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Outside his own ever-narrowing field of specialization, a scientist is a layman. What members of an academy of science have in common is a certain form of semiparasitic living.”
Erwin Chargaff (1905–2002) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine (1973)
“Good science and good art are always about a condition of awe … I don’t think there is any other function for the poet or the scientist in the human tribe but the astonishment of the soul.”
Derek Walcott (1930–2017) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas are Born (Penguin, 1990), pp. 176
“In science he could see nothing useful to mankind. ...He advised the scientist the surgeon the teacher and the artist to go and live as the poor live and try to minister to their actual wants instead of counting up insects chemically analyzing the contents of the Milky Way painting water nymphs and historical pictures writing novels and composing symphonies.”
Robert Hunter (author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No scientist is as model minded as is the statistician; in no other branch of science is the word model as often and consciously used as in statistics.”
Hans Freudenthal (1905–1990) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 79; Part of the article "Models in applied probability", published earlier in Synthese, 12 (1960), p. 204-210.
“Prof Rao said he visited the Nobel prize-winning scientist’s (C.V.Raman} laboratory in Bengaluru first as an 11 year-old school boy. “He was the first to recognize my interest in science and has given me a lot of encouragement. He made me a member of the Indian Academy of Sciences when I was only 30. I can never be equal to him.”
C. N. Ramachandra Rao (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dandy's experiments were done in the fast lane of science... performed with no control animals, with no record of the number of animals operated on, with no regard for inter-species variability, with no record of the time base, with no histological correlation, with no attempt to quantify the differences and with no involvement with a neutral scientist.”
Richard Bergland wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The life of a biological scientist in the United States is a life of discussion and debate—it is the Talmudic tradition writ large. ...The egalitarian structure of American science encourages this camaraderie. ...this would not—could not—have taken place in the Austria, the Germany, the France, or perhaps even the England of 1955.”
Eric Kandel (born 1929) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In writing Newton's biography, I have attempted, in accordance with my understanding of biography as a literary form, to avoid composing an essay on Newtonian science. At the same time I have sought to make Newton the scientist the central character of my drama.”
Richard S. Westfall (1924–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source