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Science

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“A religious creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative, expecting that modification in its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Religion and Science (1935), Ch. I: Ground of Conflict
“A man might say, with enough truth to justify a joke: "Science is what we know, and philosophy is what we don't know." But it should be added that philosophical speculation as to what we do not yet know has shown itself a valuable preliminary to exact scientific knowledge.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the modernization of science and technology, we must have a mighty scientific and technical force serving the working class, a force which is both “red and expert” and includes a large number of scientists, engineers and technicians who are first rate by world standards. It will not be easy for us to build up such a force.”
Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Though computer science is a fairly new discipline, it is predominantly based on the Cartesian world view. As Edsgar W. Dijkstra has pointed out] A scientific discipline emerges with the - usually rather slow! - discovery of which aspects can be meaningfully 'studied in isolation for the sake of their own consistency.”
Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dijkstra (1982) as cited in: Douglas Schuler, Douglas Schuler Jonathan Jacky (1989) Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing, 1987. Vol 1, p. 84.
“We must start with scientific fundamentals, and that means with the data of experiments and not with assumed axioms predicated only upon the misleading nature of that which only superficially seems to be obvious. It is the consensus of great scientists that science is the attempt to set in order the facts of experience.”
Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The word generalization in literature usually means covering too much territory too thinly to be persuasive, let alone convincing. In science, however, a generalization means a principle that has been found to hold true in every special case. ... The principle of leverage is a scientific generalization.”
Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.”
Karl Popper (1902–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Scientific theories can always be improved and are improved. That is one of the glories of science. It is the authoritarian view of the Universe that is frozen in stone and cannot be changed, so that once it is wrong, it is wrong forever.”
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Nearest Star" (1989) (reprinted in The Secret of the Universe (1992), p. 82)
“[Evolution] has in recent years been challenged in the world of science and is not yet believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was believed. But if it was going to be taught in the schools, then I think that also the biblical theory of creation, which is not a theory but the biblical story of creation, should also be taught.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Press conference at evangelical event in Dallas, Texas. (22 August 1980)
“Is no one inspired by our present picture of the universe? This value of science remains unsung by singers, you are reduced to hearing not a song or poem, but an evening lecture about it. This is not yet a scientific age.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is in scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happening by chance.”
Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to the California State board of Education (14 September 1972)
Also quoted by: 沃纳·冯·布劳恩 (zh)
“A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content.”
Theodore Sturgeon (1918–1985) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Issue at Hand: Studies in Contemporary Magazine Science Fiction (1964) by James Blish, p. 14
“I don't care what the science fiction trade technicians say, either. They are furious that I get away with murder. I use a scientific idea as a platform to leap into the air and never come back. This keeps them angry at me. They still begrudge my putting an atmosphere on Mars in The Martian Chronicles more than 40 years ago.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only a few years ago science was superstition’s hired man. The scientific men apologized for every fact they happened to find. With hat in hand they begged pardon of the parson for finding a fossil, and asked the forgiveness of God for making any discovery in nature.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) said by 1899 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“More and more it is becoming evident that what the West can most readily give to the East is its science and its scientific outlook. This is transferable from country to country, and from race to race, wherever there is a rational society.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To say that prediction is the purpose of a scientific theory is to confuse means with ends. It is like saying that the purpose of a spaceship is to burn fuel. … Passing experimental tests is only one of many things a theory has to do to achieve the real purpose of science, which is to explain the world.”
David Deutsch (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no subject inappropriate for scientific research. Johann, we’ve let you fellows have a monopoly of such matters for too long. The most serious questions in the world have been left to faith or speculation. It is time for scientists to cope with them, or admit that science is no more than pebble counting.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We may need simple and heroic legends for that peculiar genre of literature known as the textbook. But historians must also labor to rescue human beings from their legends in science—if only so that we may understand the process of scientific thought aright.”
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not until science has become a discipline to which the research ability of any mind from any class in society can be attracted that it can become rigorously scientific.”
Margaret Mead (1901–1978) said by 1978 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No society has ever yet been able to handle the temptations of technology to mastery, to waste, to exuberance, to exploration and exploitation. We have to learn to cherish this earth and cherish it as something that's fragile, that's only one, it's all we have. We have to use our scientific knowledge to correct the dangers that have come from science and technology.”
Margaret Mead (1901–1978) said by 1978 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Radio excerpt presented by Voice of America (17 January 2010)
“We have a word game in English called "Twenty questions." To play Twenty Questions, one player imagines some object, and the other players must guess what it is by asking questions that can be answered with a "yes" or a "no." I imagine every language has a similar game, and, for those of us who speak the language of science, the game is called The Scientific Method.”
Karl Barry Sharpless (born 1941) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nobel Banquet speech, 2001
“Another internal contradiction in empirical science: the mechanistic, deterministic, ‘soulless’ scientific world-view, which is the result of the means to, rather than the (inherently noble and often forgotten) ultimate purpose of, Empiricism: the actualization of the ideal in reality.”
Shulamith Firestone (1945–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.”
Edmund Hillary (1919–2008) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Wise Guys : Brilliant Thoughts and Big Talk from Real Men (2005) by Allan Zullo, p. 5
“The revolution in scientific ideas just mentioned is primarily logical. It is due to recognition that the very method of physical science, with its primary standard units of mass, space, and time, is concerned with measurements of relations of change, not with individuals as such.”
John Dewey (1859–1952) said by 1952 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science contributes moral as well as material blessings to the world. Its great moral contribution is objectivity, or the scientific point of view. This means doubting everything except facts; it means hewing to the facts, let the chips fall where they may.”
Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“B. F. Skinner actually put forward – and this is a measure of scientific desperation over consciousness – the idea that consciousness was a weird vibrational by-product of the vocal cords. That we did not actually think. We thought we thought because of this weird vibration caused by the vocal cords. This shows the lengths that hard science will go to to banish the ghost from the machine.”
Alan Moore (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The pioneer spirit is still vigorous within this nation. Science offers a largely unexplored hinterland for the pioneer who has the tools for his task. The rewards of such exploration both for the Nation and the individual are great. Scientific progress is one essential key to our security as a nation, to our better health, to more jobs, to higher standard of living, and to our cultural progress.”
Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt while director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. (5 July 1945)
“Science can be effective in the national welfare only as a member of a team, whether the conditions be peace or war. But without scientific progress no amount of achievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity, and security as a nation in the modern world.”
Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science, by itself, provides no panacea for individual, social, and economic ills. It can be effective in the national welfare only as a member of a team, whether the conditions be peace or war. But without scientific progress no amount of achievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity, and security as a nation in the modern world.”
Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown. Freedom of inquiry must be preserved under any plan for Government support of science...”
Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“True science is distinctively the study of useless things. For the useful things will get studied without the aid of scientific men.”
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The question rather is how we should do science and theology in light of the impending collapse of Enlightenment rationalism and scientific naturalism. These ideologies are on the way out. They are on the way out.”
William A. Dembski (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you would cause your view … to be acknowledged by scientific men; you would do a great service to science. If you would even get them to say yes or no to your conclusions it would help to clear the future progress. I believe some hesitate because they do not like their thoughts disturbed.”
Michael Faraday (1791–1867) said by 1867 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“According to my observation, it is above all the fantastic which prevails in S-F, that is to say these absurdities with scientific pretensions which have absolutely nothing in common with science. p.131”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At first, both (under other names, of course) can be considered equal parts of the same science, but soon the anti-scientific spirit takes over, just like those weeds that choke plants that we forget to weed. p. 287”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And so the fighting retreat continues. Each time science advances, a new bastion forms…a new line, defining some remnant territory to be kept forever holy, mystical, and vague. Safe from profane hands. Until the next scientific advance, that is.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It has been one of the most destructive modern prejudices that art and science are different and somehow incompatible interests. We have fallen into the habit of opposing the artistic to the scientific tempers; we even identify them with a creative and a critical approach.”
Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the one hand, all science, and indeed all thinking starts from and rests upon notions of order; what marks the Middle Ages is that their order was always a hierarchy. And on the other hand what marks the scientific view is not that it turned to the mechanism of causes, but that it saw the world as a mechanism at all—a machine of events.”
Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[P]articular facts are never scientific; only generalization can establish science.”
Claude Bernard (1813–1878) said by 1878 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There seems to be no limit to the possibilities of scientific medicine, and while philanthropists are turning to it as to the hope of humanity, philosophers see, as in some far-off vision, a science from which may come in the prophetic words of the Son of Sirach, "Peace over all the earth.”
William Osler (1849–1919) said by 1919 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is probably not too much to say that the hope of progress--moral and intellectual as well as material--in the future is bound up with the fortunes of science, and that every obstacle placed in the way of scientific discovery is a wrong to humanity.”
James Frazer (1854–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If somebody says, ‘Oh Evolution is not a religion. It’s a part of Science.’ Well, I’ve had a long time standing offer. For about ten years now, I’ve been offering ten thousand dollars to anybody with any scientific evidence for Evolution.”
Kent Hovind (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Diversity and integration are also needed in science and technology. Pride and prejudice are obstacles to scientific advancements and truth seeking.”
Newton Lee wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No longer is science asked to understand the world, or to improve any part of it. It is asked instead to immediately justify everything that happens....spectacular domination has cut down the vast tree of scientific knowledge in order to make itself a truncheon.”
Guy Debord (1931–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In short, the greatest contribution to real security that science can make is through the extension of the scientific method to the social sciences and a solution of the problem of complete avoidance of war.”
Edward Condon (1902–1974) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in Science, Vol. 107, June 25, 1948, p. 665
“The civilization of the West, which was brilliant by virtue of its scientific perfection for a long time, and which subjugated the whole world with the products of this science to its states and nations, is now bankrupt and in decline.”
Hassan al-Banna (1906–1949) said by 1949 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The problem of the re-organization of science will not be solved by administrative or financial changes. It will also be necessary to reorganise in a most comprehensive way the whole apparatus of scientific communication.”
John Desmond Bernal (1901–1971) said by 1971 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The men in the laboratory [...] cannot be said to observe the actual objects of their curiosity at all.[...] The sense data on which the propositions of modern science rest are, for the most part, little photographic spots and blurs, or inky curved lines on paper.[...] What is directly observable is only a sign of the "physical fact"; it requires interpretation to yield scientific propositions.”
Susanne Langer (1895–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“While the articulate contents of science are successfully taught all over the world in hundreds of universities, the unspecifiable art of scientific research has not yet penetrated to many of these.”
Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The science of anti-Semitism finally comes to explain this phenomenon, enlightening further the consciousness of people, fully satisfying their instinct and its violent eruptions thus legitimized by revealing their cause - the parasitism of the Jews. Thus it gives us the formula of the scientific solution for the problem of Judaism, which in order to realize we have only to apply.”
A.C. Cuza (1857–1947) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From "știința antisemitismului" ("The Science of Anti-Semitism"), Apararea Nationala ("The National Defense") No. 16, Nov. 15, 1922, lst year.