Noam Chomsky Quotes About Chemistry

• Physics and those parts of other fields that grow out of physics - chemistry, the structure of big molecules - in those domains, there is a lot of progress. In many other domains, there is very little progress in developing real scientific understanding.

  Noam Chomsky

  Real, Understanding, Progress

  Source: chomsky.info

• There's an interesting book about that called The Third Reich and the Ivory Tower, written by Stephen H. Norwood. It has a long discussion about Harvard, and indeed the school's president, James Conant, did block Jewish faculty. He was the one who prevented European Jews from being admitted to the chemistry department - his field - and also had pretty good relations with the Nazis.

  Noam Chomsky

  Block, Book, School

  Source: thehumanist.com

• There is a noticeable general difference between the sciences and mathematics on the one hand, and the humanities and social sciences on the other. It's a first approximation, but one that is real. In the former, the factors of integrity tend to dominate more over the factors of ideology. It's not that scientists are more honest people. It's just that nature is a harsh taskmaster. You can lie or distort the story of the French Revolution as long as you like, and nothing will happen. Propose a false theory in chemistry, and it'll be refuted tomorrow.

  Noam Chomsky

  Integrity, Real, Lying

  "Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent". Book by Robert F. Barsky, 1997.

• Chemistry, until my childhood, not that long ago, was regarded as a calculating device. Because you couldn't reduce to physics. So it's just some way of calculating the result of experiments. The Bohr atom was treated that way.

  Noam Chomsky

  Long Ago, Childhood, Way

  "Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong". Interview with Yarden Katz, www.theatlantic.com. November 1, 2012.

• It's roughly the case that if systems become too complex to study in sufficient depth, physics hands them over to chemistry, then to biology, then experimental psychology, and finally on to history. Roughly. These are tendencies, and they tend to distinguish roughly between hard and soft sciences.

  Noam Chomsky

  Hands, Psychology, Depth

  Source: libcom.org

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