History Of Science Quotes

• To know the history of science is to recognize the mortality of any claim to universal truth.

  Evelyn Fox Keller

  Science, Mortality, Claims

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• Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

  Albert Einstein

  Love, Life, Motivational

  "Science, Philosophy, and Religion" (1940).

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• [T]he history of science has proved that fundamental research is the lifeblood of individual progress and that the ideas that lead to spectacular advances spring from it.

  Edward Victor Appleton

  Spring, Science, Ideas

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• The entire history of science is a progression of exploded fallacies.

  Ayn Rand

  Progression, Fallacy

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.260, Hamilton Books

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• The history of science is full of revolutionary advances that required small insights that anyone might have had, but that, in fact, only one person did.

  Isaac Asimov

  Might, Facts, Revolutionary

  "The Three Numbers". Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, September 1974.

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• The history of science is rich in example of the fruitfulness of bringing two sets of techniques, two sets of ideas, developed in separate contexts for the pursuit of new truth, into touch with one another.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Ideas, Two, Technique

  J. Robert Oppenheimer (2013). “Uncommon Sense”, p.75, Springer Science & Business Media

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• The history of science alone can keep the physicist from the mad ambitions of dogmatism as well as the despair of pyrrhonian scepticism.

  Pierre Duhem

  Ambition, Mad, Despair

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• The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.

  Stephen Hawking

  God, Science, Order

  Stephen Hawking (2009). “A Brief History Of Time: From Big Bang To Black Holes”, p.104, Random House

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• If the history of science shows us anything, it is that we get nowhere by labeling our ignorance “God”.

  Jerry A. Coyne

  Ignorance, Shows, Labeling

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• The history of science can be viewed as the recasting of phenomena that were once thought to be accidents as phenomena that can be understood in terms of fundamental causes and principles.

  Alan Lightman

  Principles, Fundamentals, Causes

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• The history of science has been one long series of violent brainstorms, as successive generations have come to terms with increasing levels of queerness in the universe.

  Richard Dawkins

  Long, Generations, Levels

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• The history of Science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive force of the human intellect on one side, and the compression arising from traditionary faith and human interests on the other.

  John William Draper

  Faith, Science, Discovery

  John William Draper (1875). “History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science: By John William Draper ...”, p.6, New York, D. Appleton

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• Difficulties arise when reported observations seem to conflict with 'facts' that the majority of scientists accept as established and immutable. Scientists tend to reject conflicting observations.....Nevertheless, the history of science shows that new observations and theories can eventually prevail.

  Ian Stevenson

  Atheism, Facts, Majority

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• One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Writing, Done, Authority

  "The Rolling Stones". Book by Robert A. Heinlein, 1952.

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• It is a remarkable fact that the second law of thermodynamics has played in the history of science a fundamental role far beyond its original scope. Suffice it to mention Boltzmann's work on kinetic theory, Planck's discovery of quantum theory or Einstein's theory of spontaneous emission, which were all based on the second law of thermodynamics.

  Ilya Prigogine

  Hard Work, Science, Discovery

  "Time, Structure and Fluctuations". Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1977.

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• To come very near to a true theory, and to grasp its precise application, are two different things, as the history of science teaches us. Everything of importance has been said before by someone who did not discover it.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Science, Discovery, Two

  "The Organization of Thought" (1917)

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• Sigmund Freud often remarked that great revolutions in the history of science have but one common, and ironic, feature: they knock human arrogance off one pedestal after another of our previous conviction about our own self-importance.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Self, Arrogance, Ironic

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• It would be foolish to give credit to Euclid for pangeometrical conceptions; the idea of geometry deifferent from the common-sense one never occurred to his mind. Yet, when he stated the fifth postulate, he stood at the parting of the ways. His subconscious prescience is astounding. There is nothing comperable to it in the whole history of science.

  George Sarton

  Ideas, Common Sense, Giving

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• ...I think the popular view of Science is a solid body of truth, shared by a whole lot of learned men in a room, all agreeing on the answers to the questions of how the Universe works. Whereas nothing could be further from the truth!!! The one truth that I see emerging from the History of Science is that experiment has always surprised theorists. Einstein included!

  Brian May

  Men, Thinking, Views

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• One would have to have completely forgotten the history of science so as to not remember that the desire to know nature has had the most constant and the happiest influence on the development of mathematics.

  Henri Poincare

  Desire, Development, Remember

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• Tektology was the first attempt in the history of science to arrive at a systematic formulation of the principles of organization operating in living and nonliving systems.

  Fritjof Capra

  Organization, Firsts, Principles

  Fritjof Capra, Pier Luigi Luisi (2014). “The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision”, p.84, Cambridge University Press

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• The history of art cannot be properly understood without some reference to the history of science. In both we are studying the symbols by which man affirms his mental scheme, and these symbols, be they pictorial or mathematical, a fable or formula, will reflect the same changes.

  Kenneth Clark

  Art, Men, Fables

  "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day". Book by Michael J. Gelb (p. 127), October 21, 2009.

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• The result of [the] cumulative efforts to investigate the cell - to investigate life at the molecular level - is a loud, clear, piercing cry of 'design!' The result is so unambiguous and so significant that it must be ranked as one of the greatest achievements in the history of science. The discovery rivals those of Newton and Einstein, Lavoisier and Schrödinger, Pasteur, and Darwin. The observation of the intelligent design of life is as momentous as the observation that the earth goes around the sun.

  Michael Behe

  Intelligent, Cells, Discovery

  "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution". Book by Michael Behe, 1996.

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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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• It has never been in my power to study anything, mathematics, ethics, metaphysics, gravitation, thermodynamics, optics, chemistry, comparative anatomy, astronomy, psychology, phonetics, economics, the history of science, whist, men and women, wine, metrology, except as a study of semeiotic .

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Wine, Men, Psychology

  Charles Sanders Peirce (1958). “Selected Writings (Values in a Universe of Chance)”, p.408, Courier Corporation

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