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Science

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“Under my definition, a scientific theory is a proposed explanation which focuses or points to physical, observable data and logical inferences. There are many things throughout the history of science which we now think to be incorrect which nonetheless would fit that — which would fit that definition. Yes, astrology is in fact one.”
Michael Behe (born 1952) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: testimony in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, trial transcript: day 11 (18 October 2005).
“If you search the scientific literature on evolution, and if you focus your search on the question of how molecular machines—the basis of life—developed, you find an eerie and complete silence. The complexity of life’s foundation has paralyzed science’s attempt to account for it; molecular machines raise an as-yet-impenetrable barrier to Darwinism’s universal reach.”
Michael Behe (born 1952) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. (1996).
“One truth we have been able to count on concerning scientific persuit over the centuries has been that only testable theories survive the intense scrutiny of experimental science.”
John Moffat (physicist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The social sciences are in a special difficulty because they cover the same field of human behavior as literature. As science, they must claim to improve upon the prejudice and superstition of common sense, and are therefore compelled to restate the language of common sense, full of implication and innuendo, in irreproachable, blameless, scientific prose innocent of bias or any other subtlety.”
Harvey Mansfield (born 1932) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fact that a great many scientists signed Faustian pacts with the war devil throughout the twentieth century has given science a bad name, and has discouraged many able youngsters from pursuing a scientific career.”
Mario Bunge (1919–2020) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Matter and Mind (2010), p. 259.
“We realize, however, that all scientific laws merely represent abstractions and idealizations expressing certain aspects of reality. Every science means a schematized picture of reality, in the sense that a certain conceptual construct is unequivocally related to certain features of order in reality;”
Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) said by 1972 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The complete analysis of the methods of scientific inference shows that the theory of inference in science demands the use of ethical judgments”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 256; cited in Douglas, H.E. (2009) Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal
“# Systems science is that field of scientific inquiry whose objects of study are systems.”
George Klir (1932–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let me say quite categorically that there is no such thing as a fuzzy concept... We do talk about fuzzy things but they are not scientific concepts. Some people in the past have discovered certain interesting things, formulated their findings in a non-fuzzy way, and therefore we have progressed in science.”
Rudolf E. Kálmán (1930–2016) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kálmán (1972), cited in: Lotfi A. Zadeh (2004) Fuzzy Logic Systems, origin, concepts and trends November 10, 2004
“Thomas Kuhn (1962) in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions divides all scientists into those who create new paradigms of science and those who work within the established paradigms. The same division may be applied to scholars and philosophers, namely into those who create new paradigms and into those who work within the established ones.”
Thaddus E. Weckowicz (1919–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“General systems theory is the scientific exploration of "wholes" and "wholeness" which, not so long ago, were considered metaphysical notions transcending the boundaries of science. Hierarchic structure, stability, teleology, differentiation, approach to and maintenance of steady states, goal-directedness — these are a few of such general system properties.”
Ervin László (1932–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Scientific information is faced with the following problem. On the one hand, we have the world’s literature of science and technology, past and present, in many languages; on the other, and enquirer with a question. How to select, from a vast mass of words, the few that are the most closely relevant to an enquiry? It is this selection process that makes use of classification.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The area of scientific interest is... the study of the objectives, functions, structure, properties, behaviour, performance and effects of informative communication processes and information systems. To this study the name "information science" can legitimately be attached.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 330; As cited in: Lyn Robinson and David Bawden (2011).
“The scientific study of the communication of information in society – “information science” in the sense of an academic discipline...”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 11; As cited in: Lyn Robinson and David Bawden (2011).
“The nature of maps and of their use in science and society is in the midst of remarkable change - change that is stimulated by a combination of new scientific and societal needs for geo-referenced information and rapidly evolving technologies that can provide that information in innovative ways. A key issue at the heart of this change is the concept of "visualization.”
Alan MacEachren (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Success in science and scientific work come not through the provision of unlimited or big resources, but in the wise and careful selection of problems and objectives. Above all, what is required is hard sustained work and dedication.”
Lal Bahadur Shastri (1904–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I remember reading a Scientific American article about the use of new physical techniques – including neutron scattering – as a method for unravelling the structure of the ribosome. I was fascinated. I knew ribosomes were a big fundamental problem in science and this was a method for chipping away at it.”
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The historical approach to understanding of scientific fact is what differentiates the scholar in science from the mere experimenter.”
Edwin Boring (1886–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The rise of the militant anti-cult movement in America marks a new chapter in the history of human bigotry. The new bigotry turns both the ideology and the new scientific perspectives of the Enlightenment into the effective tools of modern scapegoating. The use of modern science and technology in the scapegoating solution was pioneered with great energy and effectiveness by the Nazis.”
J. Gordon Melton (born 1942) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: With Robert L. Moore, The Cult Experience, p. 95. Quoted in Kaplan 1997, p. 127
“Science, like love, is a means to that transcendence, to that soaring experience of the oneness of being fully alive. The scientific approach to nature and my understanding of love are the same:”
Ann Druyan (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A student of the history of physical science will assign to Newton a further importance which the average man can hardly appreciate. ...the separation … of positive scientific inquiries from questions of ultimate causation.”
Edwin Arthur Burtt (1892–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Scientism exalts the idea of science on its own, causing people to become fixated on the assumptions that seemed scientific to them during their formative years. This prevents them from seeing contrary facts, however glaring they may be, that have been noticed more lately.”
Mary Midgley (1919–2018) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Are You an Illusion (2014). 5.
“It will be enough to define the technocracy as that society in which those who govern justify themselves by appeal to technical experts who, in turn, justify themselves by appeal to scientific forms of knowledge. And beyond the authority of science, there is no appeal.”
Theodore Roszak (scholar) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If philosophy does not resolve any scientific problem, science, in its turn, does not resolve any philosophical problem.”
Nicolás Gómez Dávila (1913–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is much more meaningful and enjoyable to read the scientific literature about experiments you are involved in yourself than to read about science in the abstract.”
Eric Kandel (born 1929) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Western man, religious or not, came to believe that he was nothing but a shell of mechanically functioning matter, built to house his rational consciousness. ...Strangely enough, just as people were trying to get used to that kind of world, science began to see it differently. ...the scientific truths they had once considered universal and absolutely certain were only partly true.”
Morton Kelsey (1917–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The history of human progress is a story of emancipation, and its course has by no means been run. The future of the race is in all likelihood to be a scientific future, since science gives the truth needed in actual life and furnishes the means for advance, every achievement enlarging the field of subsequent possibilities. Nothing can stop this growth except suppressions of freedom.”
Ralph Vary Chamberlin (1879–1967) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Kingdom of Man" (1938)
“A comparative social science requires a generalized system of concepts which will enable the scientific observer to compare and contrast large bodies of concretely different social phenomena in consistent terms.”
Francis X. Sutton (born 1917) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: David Aberle, Albert K. Cohen, A. K. Davis, Marion J. Levy Jr. and Francis X. Sutton, (1950). T"he functional prerequisites of a society." Ethics, 60(2), p. 100; cited in: Neil J. Smelser (2013), Comparative Methods in …
Also quoted by: Albert K. Cohen, David Aberle, Marion J. Levy Jr.
“Science has only existed for a few hundred years, and its most spectacular achievements have occurred within the last century. Viewed from a historical perspective, the modern era of rapid scientific and technological progress appears to be not a permanent feature of reality, but an abberation, a fluke, a product of a singular convergence of social, intellectual, and political factors.”
John Horgan (journalist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had barely sat down when he began to tell me... that science writers were "ignoramuses" and a "terrible breed" who invariably got things wrong: only scientists were really qualified to present their work to the masses. As time went on, I felt less offended, since it became clear that Gell-Mann held most of his scientific colleagues in contempt as well.”
John Horgan (journalist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whether the medieval episode is being regarded as itself revolutionary or as an indispensable run-up to the Scientific Revolution or not even that, just about every historian of science keeps treating it as the immediate predecessor to whatever revolutionary things happened in the 17th century.”
Floris Cohen (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our thesis now is that the Portuguese seafarers and scientists of the 15th and 16th centuries made an important contribution to the rise of modern science by unintentionally undermining the belief in scientific authorities and by strengthening the confidence in an empirical, natural, historical method.”
Reijer Hooykaas (1906–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Portuguese had undertaken their voyages towards the southern hemisphere in spite of the science of their day... they followed an irresistible urge, which went against their scientific and religious convictions.”
Reijer Hooykaas (1906–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The scientific conception of chance is that of a measure based on experience; a knowledge of the average results of many events is used to replace ignorance of the result of any individual event. ...The judgment which Science gives in this case is decisive; judged by the so called "permanences," or runs of colour, Monte Carlo roulette is no true worship of the goddess at all.”
Karl Pearson (1857–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[W]e appeal to the French Académie des Sciences, to obtain from its secretary, M. Bertrand... a report on the colour runs of the Monte Carlo roulette tables for... 1892. Should he confirm the conclusion... that these runs do not obey the scientific theory of chance, then science must reconstruct its theories to suit these inconvenient facts...”
Karl Pearson (1857–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[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 placed within the reach of all.”
Karl Pearson (1857–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 reading than popularisations of them...”
Karl Pearson (1857–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hundreds of men have allowed their imagination to solve the universe, but the men who have contributed to our real understanding of natural phenomena have been those who were unstinting in their application of criticism to the product of their imaginations. It is such criticism which is the essence of the scientific use of the imagination, which is... the very life-blood of science.”
Karl Pearson (1857–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[O]nly little by little, slowly... man, by the aid of organised observation and careful reasoning, can hope to reach knowledge of the truth... science... is the sole gateway to a knowledge which can harmonise with our past as well as with our... future... As Clifford puts it, "Scientific thought is not an accompaniment or condition of human progress, but human progress itself.”
Karl Pearson (1857–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The error in depicting critics of animal experiments as anti-science becomes clear when one begins to question the extent to which the purported scientific aims of these experiments are actually accomplished. For then it turns out that the experiments and not their critics are unscientific.”
Deborah Mayo (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The scientific point of view is that such claims of postmodernism are a travesty that comes from mixing ideology and politics with science.”
Mordechai Ben-Ari (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Today we are on the brink of a new synthesis. In the past four centuries western science has experienced a continuous shattering and reforming of its basic concepts. Now the scientific community has begun to recognize striking correlations between their findings and those expressed abstrusely by ancient mystics. This is a convocation of visionary men and women pioneering this new synthesis.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science fiction, as I like to define it, is fiction based on the imagined exploration of scientific possibility. The distinction from fantasy—or from other sorts of fantasy—lies in the word possibility.”
Jack Williamson (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe this transfer was in response to my insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the COVID-19 pandemic into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit. I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science – not politics or cronyism – has to lead the way.”
Rick Bright (born 1966) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On April 22, 2020, statement objecting to his removal as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response and Director of BARDA. As quoted in a whistleblower complaint filed by Bright on May 5, 2020. Text online
“A closely allied type of irrationality is termed irrefutability. This name relates to the idea that a good scientific theory should be refutable: At least in theory, there should be some evidence that would lead us to doubt or reject the theory. If all evidence is simply interpreted as supporting it, then it is termed irrefutable, which is a hallmark of pseudoscience, not of science.”
Robyn Dawes (1936–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The secret of science is to ask the right question, and it is the choice of problem more than anything else that marks the man of genius in the scientific world.”
Henry Tizard (1885–1959) said by 1959 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said that the Intel competition "identifies and honors the top math and science students in America, based on their solutions to scientific problems.”
Norman Matloff (1948–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any scientific research in the field of military science is worthless if military theory does not provide the function of foresight.”
Valery Gerasimov (born 1955) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ценность науки в предвидении" (26 February 2013)
“The world is clamoring for global regulations that respect scientific achievements, which abound, but it is not science that governs the world.”
José Mujica (1935–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have depended on donor countries for scientific development for so long. It's time we commit more resources in our national budget to advance science and technology.”
Bingu wa Mutharika (1934–2012) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bingu wa Mutharika (2007) cited in: "Malawi president makes post-summit pledges" in SciDev.Net, 1 February 2007.