Scientific Truth Quotes - Page 3

• The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Science, Thinking, Fog

  Stephen Jay Gould (2011). “Full House”, p.57, Harvard University Press

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• The eye which can appreciate the naked and absolute beauty of a scientific truth is far more rare than that which is attracted by a moral one.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Appreciation, Eye, Science

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.270, Delphi Classics

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• The most solid piece of scientific truth I know of is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature.

  Lewis Thomas

  Ignorant, Pieces, Knows

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• It sounds paradoxical to say the attainment of scientific truth has been effected, to a great extent, by the help of scientific errors.

  Thomas Huxley

  Errors, Sound, Helping

  Method and Results The Progress of Science (p. 63)

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• Scientific truth will out, you can't hide the sun under a stone.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Science, Stones, Sun

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• Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.

  Thomas Huxley

  Motivational, Science, Open Minded

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.359, University of Georgia Press

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• Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty.

  Isaac Asimov

  Loyalty, Foundation, Truth Is

  Isaac Asimov (1951). “The foundation trilogy: three classics of science fiction”

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• For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.

  Jasper Fforde

  Science, Opposites, Experts

  Jasper Fforde (2011). “One of our Thursdays is Missing: Thursday Next”, p.122, Hachette UK

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• I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as the facts are shown to be opposed to it.

  Charles Darwin

  Giving Up, Science, Mind

  "Dow 36,000". Book by James K. Glassman, Kevin A. Hassett, www.cnn.com. September 14, 1999.

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• No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars.

  Helen Keller

  Nature, Stars, Optimistic

  Helen Keller (2012). “Optimism”, p.17, Simon and Schuster

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• The most important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplemented in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote.

  Albert A. Michelson

  Discovery, Law, Important

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• Who never walks save where he sees men's tracks makes no discoveries.

  J. G. Holland

  Science, Men, Discovery

  J. G. HOLLAND (1867). “KATHRINA: HER LIFE AND MINE, IN A POEM”, p.230

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• If I want to stop a research program I can always do it by getting a few experts to sit in on the subject, because they know right away that it was a fool thing to try in the first place.

  Charles Kettering

  Science, Trying, Experts

  Charles Franklin Kettering (1961). “Prophet of progress: selections from the speeches of Charles F. Kettering”

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• When a thing is new, people say: ‘It is not true.’ Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say: ‘It is not important.’ Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say: ‘Anyway, it is not new.

  William James

  People, Important, Importance

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• Science is not there for you to cherry pick ... You can decide whether or not to believe in it but that doesn’t change the reality of an emergent scientific truth.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Believe, Reality, Cherries

  "Neil DeGrasse Tyson To Science Deniers: ‘Science Is Not There For You To Cherry Pick’" by Katie Valentine, thinkprogress.org. March 10, 2014.

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• Much scientific truth proved to be as hypothetical as poetic allegory. The relationshiip of those rod-connected blue and red balls to an actual atomic structure was about the same as the relationship of Christianity to the fish or the Lamb.

  Tom Robbins

  Truth, Blue, Balls

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• Medicine being a compendium of the successive and contradictory mistakes of medical practitioners, when we summon the wisest of them to our aid, the chances are that we may be relying on a scientific truth the error of which will be recognized in a few years time.

  Marcel Proust

  Mistake, Errors, Doctors

  Marcel Proust, Charles Kenneth Scott-Moncrieff, Terence Kilmartin, Dennis Joseph Enright (1996). “In Search of Lost Time: The Guermantes way”, Vintage Classics

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• The time has come when scientific truth must cease to be the property of the few, when it must be woven into the common life of the world.

  Louis Agassiz

  Life, Truth, Woven

  Louis Agassiz (1870). “Methods of Study in Natural History”, p.42

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• Scientific truth is universal, because it is only discovered by the human brain and not made by it, as art is.

  Konrad Lorenz

  Art, Truth, Science

  Konrad Lorenz (2002). “On Aggression”, p.279, Psychology Press

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• In summoning even the wisest of physicians to our aid, it is probably that he is relying upon a scientific "truth", the error of which will become obvious in just a few years' time.

  Marcel Proust

  Health, Medicine, Errors

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• The man who discovers a new scientific truth has previously had to smash to atoms almost everything he had learnt, and arrives at the new truth with hands blood stained from the slaughter of a thousand platitudes.

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Truth, Science, Men

  1930 The Revolt of theMasses.

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• Elections, for their part, are typically popularity contests rather than measures of candidates' relative competency or effectiveness. Imagine if scientific truth were determined according to which scientist was most popular. To be successful, scientists would have to be charismatic and attractive - and human knowledge would suffer terribly.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Successful, Effectiveness, Suffering

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• So erst the Sage [Pythagoras] with scientific truth In Grecian temples taught the attentive youth; With ceaseless change how restless atoms pass From life to life, a transmigrating mass; How the same organs, which to-day compose The poisonous henbane, or the fragrant rose, May with to-morrow's sun new forms compile, Frown in the Hero, in the Beauty smile. Whence drew the enlighten'd Sage the moral plan, That man should ever be the friend of man; Should eye with tenderness all living forms, His brother-emmets, and his sister-worms.

  Erasmus Darwin

  Brother, Hero, Eye

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• The scientific truth may be put quite briefly; eat moderately, having an ordinary mixed diet, and don't worry.

  Sir Robert Hutchison, 1st Baronet

  Health, Worry, Ordinary

  Newcastle Medical Journal Vol. 12 (1932)

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• Human well-being is not a random phenomenon. It depends on many factors - ranging from genetics and neurobiology to sociology and economics. But, clearly, there are scientific truths to be known about how we can flourish in this world. Wherever we can have an impact on the well-being of others, questions of morality apply.

  Sam Harris

  Impact, World, Morality

  "The Moral Landscape : Thinking About Human Values in Universal Terms" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 25, 2010.

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