Observation Quotes - Page 31

• ...learning chiefly in mathematical sciences can so swallow up and fix one's thought, as to possess it entirely for some time; but when that amusement is over, nature will return, and be where it was, being rather diverted than overcome by such speculations.

  Gilbert Burnet

  Science, Overcoming, Amusement

  Gilbert Burnet (1745). “An Exposition of the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England”, p.176

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• They have never affirm'd any thing, concerning the cause, till the trial was past: whereas, to do it before, is a most venomous thing in the making of Sciences: for whoever has fix'd on his Cause, before he has experimented; can hardly avoid fitting his Experiment, and his Observations, to his Own Cause, which he had before imagin'd; rather than the Cause to the Truth of the Experiment itself. Referring to experiments of the Aristotelian mode, whereby a preconceived truth would be illustrated merely to convince people of the validity of the original thought.

  Thomas Sprat

  Truth, Science, Past

  "The History of the Royal Society of London, for the Improving of Natural Knowledge".

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• As historians, we refuse to allow ourselves these vain speculations which turn on possibilities that, in order to be reduced to actuality, suppose an overturning of the Universe, in which our globe, like a speck of abandoned matter, escapes our vision and is no longer an object worthy of our regard. In order to fix our vision, it is necessary to take it such as it is, to observe well all parts of it, and by indications infer from the present to the past.

  Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

  Science, Past, Order

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• As there is not in human observation proper means for measuring the waste of land upon the globe, it is hence inferred, that we cannot estimate the duration of what we see at present, nor calculate the period at which it had begun; so that, with respect to human observation, this world has neither a beginning nor an end.

  James Hutton

  Mean, Science, Land

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• Astronomy may be revolutionized more than any other field of science by observations from above the atmosphere. Study of the planets, the Sun, the stars, and the rarified matter in space should all be profoundly influenced by measurements from balloons, rockets, probes and satellites. ... In a new adventure of discovery no one can foretell what will be found, and it is probably safe to predict that the most important new discovery that will be made with flying telescopes will be quite unexpected and unforeseen.

  Lyman Spitzer

  Stars, Adventure, Science

  Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 17, No. 5, p. 191, 194, May 1961.

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• During the last two centuries and a half, physical knowledge has been gradually made to rest upon a basis which it had not before. It has become mathematical. The question now is, not whether this or that hypothesis is better or worse to the pure thought, but whether it accords with observed phenomena in those consequences which can be shown necessarily to follow from it, if it be true

  Augustus De Morgan

  Knowledge, Science, Two

  Augustus De Morgan (1872). “A Budget of Paradoxes Reprinted, with the Author's Additions, from the Athenaeum Augustus De Morgan”, p.2

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• Error, never can be consistent, nor can truth fail of having support from the accurate examination of every circumstance.

  James Hutton

  Truth, Science, Errors

  James Hutton (1788*). “Theory of the earth; or an investigation of the laws observable in the composition, dissolution and restoration of land upon the globe. (From. the Trans., Roy. soc. of Edinb.).”, p.51

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• Experiments in geology are far more difficult than in physics and chemistry because of the greater size of the objects, commonly outside our laboratories, up to the earth itself, and also because of the fact that the geologic time scale exceeds the human time scale by a million and more times. This difference in time allows only direct observations of the actual geologic processes, the mind having to imagine what could possibly have happened in the past.

  Reinout Willem van Bemmelen

  Science, Past, Differences

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• For the little that one has reflected on the origin of our knowledge, it is easy to perceive that we can acquire it only by means of comparison. That which is absolutely incomparable is wholly incomprehensible. God is the only example that we could give here. He cannot be comprehended, because he cannot be compared. But all which is susceptible of comparison, everything that we can perceive by different aspects, all that we can consider relatively, can always be judged according to our knowledge.

  Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

  God, Knowledge, Mean

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• For those [observations] that I made in Leipzig in my youth and up to my 21st year, I usually call childish and of doubtful value. Those that I took later until my 28th year [i.e., until 1574] I call juvenile and fairly serviceable. The third group, however, which I made at Uraniborg during approximately the last 21 years with the greatest care and with very accurate instruments at a more mature age, until I was fifty years of age, those I call the observations of my manhood, completely valid and absolutely certain, and this is my opinion of them.

  Tycho Brahe

  Science, Years, Age

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• From his observations, he concluded that it [Tycho's supernova] was not some kind of comet or a fiery meteor, whether these be generated beneath the Moon or above the Moon, but that it is a star shining in the firmament itself - one that has never previously been seen before our time, in any age since the beginning of the world.

  Tycho Brahe

  Stars, Science, Moon

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• From my numerous observations, I conclude that these tubercle bacilli occur in all tuberculous disorders, and that they are distinguishable from all other microorganisms.

  Robert Koch

  Science, Disease, Disorder

  Robert Koch (1987). “Essays of Robert Koch”, Praeger Pub Text

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• Geological facts being of an historical nature, all attempts to deduce a complete knowledge of them merely from their still, subsisting consequences, to the exclusion of unexceptionable testimony, must be deemed as absurd as that of deducing the history of ancient Rome solely from the medals or other monuments of antiquity it still exhibits, or the scattered ruins of its empire, to the exclusion of a Livy, a Sallust, or a Tacitus.

  Richard Kirwan

  Knowledge, Science, Rome

  Richard Kirwan (1799). “Geological essays”, p.5

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• Geology ... offers always some material for observation. ... [When] spring and summer come round, how easily may the hammer be buckled round the waist, and the student emerge from the dust of town into the joyous air of the country, for a few delightful hours among the rocks.

  Archibald Geikie

  Summer, Country, Spring

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• Geology is part of that remarkable dynamic process of the human mind which is generally called science and to which man is driven by an inquisitive urge. By noticing relationships in the results of his observations, he attempts to order and to explain the infinite variety of phenomena that at first sight may appear to be chaotic.

  Reinout Willem van Bemmelen

  Science, Men, Fire

  "The Scientific Character of Geology". The Journal of Geology, Vol. 69, No. 4, p. 454, July 1961.

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• Having always observed that most of them who constantly took in the weekly Bills of Mortality made little other use of them than to look at the foot how the burials increased or decreased, and among the Casualties what had happened, rare and extraordinary, in the week current; so as they might take the same as a Text to talk upon in the next company, and withal in the Plague-time, how the Sickness increased or decreased, that the Rich might judg of the necessity of their removal, and Trades-men might conjecture what doings they were likely to have in their respective dealings.

  John Graunt

  Science, Men, Feet

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• History, human or geological, represents our hypothesis, couched in terms of past events, devised to explain our present-day observations.

  M. King Hubbert

  Science, Past, History

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• I am a firm believer, that without speculation there is no good and original observation.

  Charles Darwin

  Education, Science, Speculation

  Charles Darwin (2016). “Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: the Evolution”, p.342, VM eBooks

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• I am not accustomed to saying anything with certainty after only one or two observations.

  Andreas Vesalius

  Science, Two, Scientific Method

  Letter on the China Root, quoted in "Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514-1564" by Charles Donald O'Malley, 1964.

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• If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

  Arthur Eddington

  Hope, Science, Errors

  "The Nature of the Physical World" by Arthur Eddington, (Ch. 4), 1928.

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• If the Commission is to enquire into the conditions "to be observed," it is to be presumed that they will give the result of their enquiries; or, in other words, that they will lay down, or at least suggest, "rules" and "conditions to be (hereafter) observed" in the construction of bridges, or, in other words, embarrass and shackle the progress of improvement to-morrow by recording and registering as law the prejudices or errors of to-day. [Objecting to any interference by the State with the freedom of civil engineers in the conduct of their professional work.]

  Isambard Kingdom Brunel

  Errors, Law, Bridges

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• And first, it seems not at all probable, That if the Omniscient Author of Nature knew that the study of his Works did really tend to make Men disbelieve his Being or Attributes, he would have given Men so many Invitations, and almost Necessities, to study and contemplate the Nature of his Creatures: Of these Invitations divers have been mention'd already, and more might be added to them, if we thought it requisite.

  Robert Boyle

  God, Science, Men

  "Some Considerations Touching the Usefulnesse of Experimental Naturall Philosophy".

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• It was astonishing that for some considerable distance around the mould growth the staphococcal colonies were undergoing lysis. What had formerly been a well-grown colony was now a faint shadow of its former self...I was sufficiently interested to pursue the subject.

  Alexander Fleming

  Distance, Science, Self

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• Many 'hard' scientists regard the term 'social science' as an oxymoron. Science means hypotheses you can test, and prove or disprove. Social science is little more than observation putting on airs.

  Michael Kinsley

  Mean, Science, Air

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• Matters of fact, which as Mr Budgell somewhere observes, are very stubborn things.

  Matthew Tindal

  Science, Stubborn, Matter

  'The Will of Matthew Tindal' (1733) p. 23

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