Peter Medawar Quotes About Evidence

Quotes about: Evidence

• It is naïve to suppose that the acceptance of evolution theory depends upon the evidence of a number of so-called "proofs"; it depends rather upon the fact that the evolutionary theory permeates and supports every branch of biological science, much as the notion of the roundness of the earth underlies all geodesy and all cosmological theories on which the shape of the earth has a bearing. Thus antievolutionism is of the same stature as flat-earthism.

  Peter Medawar

  Acceptance, Numbers, Support

• If a scientist were to cut his ear off, no one would take it as evidence of a heightened sensibility.

  Peter Medawar

  Cutting, Luck, Ears

  Peter Brian Medawar (1996). “The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays on Science”, p.86, Oxford University Press, USA

• The fact that scientists do not consciously practice a formal methodology is very poor evidence that no such methodology exists. It could be said-has been said-that there is a distinctive methodology of science which scientists practice unwittingly, like the chap in Moliere who found that all his life, unknowingly, he had been speaking prose.

  Peter Medawar

  Science, Practice, Facts

  Peter Brian Medawar (1969). “Induction and intuition in scientific thought”

• Twice in my life I have spent two weary and scientifically profitless years seeking evidence to corroborate dearly loved hypotheses that later proved to be groundless; times such as these are hard for scientists-days of leaden gray skies bringing with them a miserable sense of oppression and inadequacy.

  Peter Medawar

  Science, Years, Sky

  Peter Brian Medawar (1979). “Advice to a young scientist”, Harpercollins Childrens Books

• The case I shall find evidence for is that when literature arrives, it expels science.

  Peter Medawar

  Science, Literature, Cases

  Peter Brian Medawar (1973). “The hope of progress: a scientist looks at problems in philosophy, literature and science”, Anchor

• Observation is the generative act in scientific discovery. For all its aberrations, the evidence of the senses is essentially to be relied upon provided we observe nature as a child does, without prejudices and preconceptions, but with that clear and candid vision which adults lose and scientists must strive to regain.

  Peter Medawar

  Children, Discovery, Vision

  Peter Brian Medawar (1969). “Induction and intuition in scientific thought”

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