Scientist Quotes - Page 40

• Exploration is the sport of the scientist

  Auguste Piccard

  Sports, Exploration

  6 Copy quote

• Whoever we are here, we might be princesses somewhere else. Or writers. Or scientists. Or presidents. Or whatever the hell we want to be that everyone else says we can't.

  Candace Bushnell

  Princess, Somewhere Else, President

  Candace Bushnell (2010). “The Carrie Diaries”, p.9, Harper Collins

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The State is not, as many political scientists would make it, an inanimate thing; it consists of people, human beings, each of whom operates under an inner compulsion to get the most out of life with the least expenditure of labor.

  Frank Chodorov

  People, Political, States

  Frank Chodorov (1959). “The Rise & Fall of Society”, p.95, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• As a scientist I must be mindful of the past; all too often it has happened that matters of great value to science were overlooked because the new phenomenon did not fit the accepted scientific outlook of the time.

  J. Allen Hynek

  Past, Matter, Fit

  60 Copy quote

• Take a brilliant, creative social scientist, without any respect for conventional wisdom and you get Ellen Langer. She is a fantastic storyteller, and Counterclockwise is a fascinating story about the unexpected ways in which our minds and bodies are connected.

  Dan Ariely

  Creative, Mind, Stories

  7 Copy quote

• It is not only visitors to the zoo who are fascinated but uneasy in the presence of chimpanzees; the same is true of scientists. The more they learn about these great apes, the deeper our identity crisis seems to become. The resemblance between humans and chimpanzees is not only external. If we look straight and deep into a chimpanzee’s eyes, an intelligent, self-assured personality looks back at us. If they are animals, what must we be?

  Frans de Waal

  Zoos, Eye, Animal

  Frans de Waal (2007). “Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes”, p.3, JHU Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When the wrong question is being asked, it usually turns out to be because the right question is too difficult. Scientists ask questions they can answer. That is, it is often the case that the operations of a science are not a consequence of the problematic of that science, but that the problematic is induced by the available means.

  Richard Lewontin

  Mean, Answers, Operations

  7 Copy quote

• Scientists don't believe anything.Scientists test things.

  Simon Conway Morris

  Believe, Tests, Don't Believe

  4 Copy quote

• The natural pattern of current astronomy is provided by the cryptic unity of nature itself (belief in which is the chief act of faith of the scientist).

  Nigel Calder

  Unity, Patterns, Belief

  Nigel Calder (1969). “Violent universe: an eye-witness account of the commotion in astronomy 1968-69”

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• The very foundation of science is to keep the door open to doubt. Precisely because we keep questioning everything, especially our own premises, we are always ready to improve our knowledge. Therefore a good scientist is never ‘certain’. Lack of certainty is precisely what makes conclusions more reliable than the conclusions of those who are certain: because the good scientist will be ready to shift to a different point of view if better elements of evidence, or novel arguments emerge. Therefore certainty is not only something of no use, but is in fact damaging, if we value reliability.

  Carlo Rovelli

  Doors, Views, Doubt

  24 Copy quote

• I wanted to be a scientist. I did a thesis on lions. But I realised photography can show things writing can't. Lions were my professor of photography.

  Yann Arthus-Bertrand

  Photography, Writing, Lions

  "Photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand's best shot" by Andrew Pulver, www.theguardian.com. September 23, 2009.

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• The theist and the scientist are rival interpreters of nature, the one retreats as the other advances.

  Joseph McCabe

  Atheism, Rivals, Retreat

  "The Existence of God". Book by Joseph McCabe, 1913.

  55 Copy quote

  Show source

• And I'm a stodgy old scientist who believes, naively, that there exists an external world, that there exist objective truths about that world, and that my job is to discover some of them.

  Alan Sokal

  Jobs, Believe, Objective Truth

  Alan Sokal (2010). “Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture”, p.141, OUP Oxford

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• And so, I was not a military test pilot, but as soon as NASA expressed an interest in flying scientists and people who were not military test pilots, that was an epiphany that just came like a stroke of lightning.

  Story Musgrave

  Military, People, Flying

  "NASA Distinguished Service Medal". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. May 22, 1997.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Well managed and healthy oceans are vital to the survival of small island states, such as the Maldives. This important book shows how scientists and governments can better protect the world's oceans.

  Mohamed Nasheed

  Ocean, Book, Islands

  8 Copy quote

• You see, I am a very conventional scientist, really.

  Martin Fleischmann

  Conventional

  4 Copy quote

• Scientists are really very conscious of the fact that they stand on the shoulders of an enormous tree of preceding workers and that their own contribution is not so enormous.

  Martin Fleischmann

  Tree, Facts, Conscious

  8 Copy quote

• Sweden rejected fluoridation in the 1970s, and in this excellent book these three scientists have confirmed the wisdom of that decision. Our children have not suffered greater tooth decay, as World Health Organization figures attest, and in turn our citizens have not borne the other hazards fluoride may cause

  Arvid Carlsson

  Children, Book, Organization

  6 Copy quote

• I recognized that teaching and research institutions vitally depend on the involvement of active scientists also in management functions.

  Richard Ernst

  Teaching, Research, Management

  7 Copy quote

• We think that it is the best scientists working in the frontier fields of science who are best able to judge what is good and what is bad - if any - in the application of their scientific research.

  Kenichi Fukui

  Thinking, Judging, Research

  16 Copy quote

• Elegance? It may seem odd to non-scientists, but there is an aesthetic in software as there is in every other area of intellectual endeavour. Truly great programmers are like great poets or great mathematicians - they can achieve in a few lines what lesser mortals can only approach in three volumes

  John Naughton

  Intellectual, Three, Lines

  4 Copy quote

• A wise and well-informed humanist has taken the time to look lovingly and wonderingly at the living world around him, and to study the ways in which scientists have tried to analyze the world... THE BEST INTRODUCTION TO NATURAL HISTORY THAT HAS YET BEEN WRITTEN.

  Marston Bates

  Wise, Taken, Looks

  4 Copy quote

• Unequal Democracy is the sort of book to which every political scientist should aspire--it is methodologically rigorous, conceptually serious, and above all, it addresses urgent concerns of our fellow citizens. As Bartels shows, much of what we think we know about the politics of economic inequality is dead wrong. Bartels's perplexing and often unexpected discoveries should help refocus the gathering public debate about inequality and what to do about it.

  Robert D. Putnam

  Book, Thinking, Economic Inequality

  14 Copy quote

• Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of creation.

  Robert Jastrow

  Creation, Proof, Results

  12 Copy quote

• I'm a medical doctor and a biomedical scientist.

  Steven Hatfill

  Doctors, Medical, Biomedical

  "Text of Hatfill's Statement". www.foxnews.com. August 11, 2002.

  87 Copy quote

  Show source