Scientific Theory Quotes - Page 2

• The method of science depends on our attempts to describe the world with simple theories: theories that are complex may become untestable, even if they happen to be true. Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification-the art of discerning what we may with advantage omit.

  Karl Popper

  Art, Science, Simple

  Karl Popper (2012). “The Open Universe: An Argument for Indeterminism From the Postscript to The Logic of Scientific Discovery”, p.44, Routledge

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• Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that this is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not bring us any closer to the secrets of the "Old One." I, at any rate, am convinced that He is not playing at dice.

  Albert Einstein

  God, Real, Voice

  Quoted in Ronald W. Clark's Einstein: The Life and Times (p. 340)

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• When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

  Isaac Asimov

  Atheist, Science, Epic

  "The Relativity of Wrong". Book by Isaac Asimov, 1996.

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• I have second thoughts. Maybe God is malicious.
  Told to Valentine Bargmann.

  Albert Einstein

  God, Valentine, Second Thoughts

  Quoted in Jamie Sayen, Einstein in America (1985).

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• In science, the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.

  Francis Darwin

  Business, Science, Men

  Eugenics Review, Apr. 1914

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• Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.

  Isaac Asimov

  Dream, Religious, Atheist

  "Like Rolling Uphill: Realizing the Honesty of Atheism". Book by Dianna Narciso, 2004.

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• The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory.

  Arthur Eddington

  Thinking, Ideas, Design

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• No scientific theory achieves public acceptance until it has been thoroughly discredited.

  Douglas Yates

  Acceptance, Technology, Achieve

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• A new scientific theory is seldom stated with such clarity by its original author, and usually takes many years to creep into public conciousness.

  John Ziman

  Years, Clarity, Creeps

  "The Force of Knowledge: The Scientific Dimension of Society". Book by John Ziman, p. 98, 1976.

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• Scientific theory and its application to the growing needs of mankind advance hand in hand.

  Cargill Gilston Knott

  Hands, Needs, Growing

  Cargill Gilston Knott (2015). “Life and Scientific Work of Peter Guthrie Tait”, p.1, Cambridge University Press

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• Historically speaking all - or very nearly all - scientific theories originate from myths.

  Karl Popper

  Theory, Myth

  Karl Popper (2014). “Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge”, p.50, Routledge

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• ...As Thomas Kuhn pointed out in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, new scientific theories in any field are regarded with skepticism because scientists become attached to the old perspective earlier in their careers.

  Marilyn Ferguson

  Dark, Careers, Perspective

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• One does not ask whether a scientific theory is true, but only whether it is convenient.

  Henri Poincare

  Doe, Theory, Convenient

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• A good scientific theory should be explicable to a barmaid.

  Ernest Rutherford

  Barmaids, Should, Theory

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• Scientific theories never dictate human values, but they can often cast new light on ethical issues. From a sexual selection viewpoint, moral philosophy and political theory have mostly been attempts to shift male human sexual competitiveness from physical violence to the peaceful accumulation of wealth and status. The rights to life, liberty, and property are cultural inventions that function, in part, to keep males from killing and stealing from one another while they compete to attract sexual partners.

  Geoffrey Miller

  Philosophy, Issues, Rights

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• The indispensability argument seeks to assimilate the epistemology of metaphysical statements to the epistemology of statements that are obviously empirical. I think it fails to achieve this goal. The argument does not refute the Carnapian thesis that scientific theories and metaphysical claims differ epistemologically - observations can provide evidence for the former, but not for the latter.

  Elliott Sober

  Thinking, Goal, Doe

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• Extreme heroism springs from something that no scientific theory can fully explain; it's an illogical impulse that flies in the face of biology, psychology, actuarial statistics, and basic common sense.

  Christopher McDougall

  Spring, Common Sense, Psychology

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• There is no scientific theory that could lead us from a detailed map of every single neuron in someone's brain to a conscious experience. We don't even have the beginnings of a theory whose conclusion would be "such a system is conscious.

  Stuart J. Russell

  Brain, Would Be, Neurons

  "Intelligent robots don't need to be conscious to turn against us". Interview with Guia Marie Del Prado, uk.businessinsider.com. August 9, 2015.

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• My choice of colors does not rest on any scientific theory; it is based on observation, on feeling, on the experience of my sensibility. Inspired by certain pages of Delacroix, an artist like Signac is preoccupied with complementary colors, and the theoretical knowledge of them will lead him to use a certain tone in a certain place. But I simply try to put down colors which render my sensation.

  Henri Matisse

  Artist, Color, Choices

  "Artists on Art - from the 14th - 20th centuries". Book edited by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, London, p. 412, 'Notes d'un Peintre' (Notes of a Painter), 1972.

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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

  Religious, Adventure, Arriving

  "Religion and Science". Book by Bertrand Russell, Ch. I: Ground of Conflict, 1935.

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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

  Thinking, Astrology, Data

  "Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District". Trial transcript: Day 11, www.talkorigins.org. October 18, 2005.

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• The fact that these scientific theories have a fine track record of successful prediction and explanation speaks for itself. (Which is not to say that I don't directly discuss the work of those philosophers who would disagree.) But even if we grant this, many will argue that scientific knowledge in humans, and, indeed, reflective knowledge in general, is quite different in kind from the knowledge we see in other animals.

  Hilary Kornblith

  Successful, Animal, Track

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.

  Jon Jones

  Theory Of Evolution, Facts, Alternatives

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• We do not master a scientific theory until we have shelled and completely prised free its mathematical kernel.

  David Hilbert

  Theory, Masters, Mathematical

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• Neither evolution nor creation qualifies as a scientific theory.

  Duane Gish

  Evolution, Creation, Theory

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