Scientific Knowledge Quotes - Page 2

• More than any other product of human scientific culture scientific knowledge is the collective property of all mankind.

  Konrad Lorenz

  Knowledge, Science, Culture

  KONRAD LORENZ (1963). “ON AGRESSION”

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• Scientific research involves going beyond the well-trodden and well-tested ideas and theories that form the core of scientific knowledge. During the time scientists are working things out, some results will be right, and others will be wrong. Over time, the right results will emerge.

  Lisa Randall

  Ideas, Research, Scientist

  "CERN or Einstein? Interpreting the Findings" by Lisa Randall, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 25, 2011.

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• The stumbling way in which even the ablest of the scientists in every generation have had to fight through thickets of erroneous observations, misleading generalizations, inadequate formulation, and unconscious prejudice is rarely appreciated by those who obtain their scientific knowledge from textbooks.

  James Bryant Conant

  Fighting, Science, Prejudice

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• Scientific knowledge is an enabling power to do either good or bad — but it does not carry instructions on how to use it.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Doe, Use, Enabling

  Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.126, Princeton University Press

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• Rhetoric is useful because the true and the just are naturally superior to their opposites, so that, if decisions are improperly made, they must owe their defeat to their own advocates; which is reprehensible. Further, in dealing with certain persons, even if we possessed the most accurate scientific knowledge, we should not find it easy to persuade them by the employment of such knowledge. For scientific discourse is concerned with instruction, but in the case of such persons instruction is impossible.

  Aristotle

  Opposites, Decision, Employment

  Aristotle, John Henry Freese (1926). “Aristotle: the art of rhetoric”, Loeb Classical Library

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• It is rather astonishing how little practical value scientific knowledge has for ordinary men, how dull and commonplace such of it as has value is, and how its value seems almost to vary inversely to its reputed utility.

  G. H. Hardy

  Knowledge, Science, Men

  G. H. Hardy (1992). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.117, Cambridge University Press

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• Reliable scientific knowledge is value free and has no moral or ethical value. Science tells us how the world is. ... Dangers and ethical issue arise only when science is applied as technology.

  Lewis Wolpert

  Knowledge, Science, Technology

  "Who's to blame?" by Lewis Wolpert, www.theguardian.com. March 11, 2002.

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• As for Lindbergh, another eminent servant of science, all he proved by his gaudy flight across the Atlantic was that God takes care of those who have been so fortunate as to come into the world foolish. Expressing skepticism that adventure does not necessarily contribute to scientific knowledge.

  H. L. Mencken

  Adventure, World, Care

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• Whether or not science can be applied to that mental construct [i.e. the designed entity] is a matter of availability. If there is body of scientific knowledge that can be applied, then it would be foolish not to exploit it. However, if there is none, it does not mean that the thing cannot be designed, made, and used safely.

  Henry Petroski

  Mean, Availability, Doe

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• The fact that these scientific theories have a fine track record of successful prediction and explanation speaks for itself. (Which is not to say that I don't directly discuss the work of those philosophers who would disagree.) But even if we grant this, many will argue that scientific knowledge in humans, and, indeed, reflective knowledge in general, is quite different in kind from the knowledge we see in other animals.

  Hilary Kornblith

  Successful, Animal, Track

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• We may take it to be the accepted idea that the Mosaic books were not handed down to us for our instruction in scientific knowledge, and that it is our duty to ground our scientific beliefs upon observation and inference, unmixed with considerations of a different order.

  Asa Gray

  Book, Order, Ideas

  Asa Gray (1880). “Natural Science and Religion”

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• Betterment of conditions the world over is not essentially dependent on scientific knowledge but on the fulfillment of human traditions and ideals.

  Albert Einstein

  World, Tradition, Fulfillment

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• In the medical profession a horse and carriage are more necessary than any scientific knowledge.

  Honore de Balzac

  Horse, Knowledge, Medicine

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• There is no use of simply acquiring titles or amassing wealth if one has no self-respect and scientific knowledge.

  Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

  Self, Titles, Use

  Collected works of Periyar E.V.R., p. 511, 2005.

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• Khem was an ancient name for the land of Egypt; and both the words alchemy and chemistry are a perpetual reminder of the priority of Egypt's scientific knowledge.

  Manly Hall

  Egypt, Land, Names

  Manly P. Hall (2010). “The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy”, p.438, Courier Corporation

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• The chief requisite for the making of a good chicken pie is chicken; no amount of culinary legerdemain can make up for the lack of chicken. In the same way, the chief requisite for the history of science is intimate scientific knowledge; no amount of philosophic legerdemain can make up for its absence.

  George Sarton

  Pie, Way, Absence

  George Sarton (1918). “The Teaching of the History of Science”

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• Although humans have existed on this planet for perhaps 2 million years, the rapid climb to modern civilization within the last 200 years was possible due to the fact that the growth of scientific knowledge is exponential; that is, its rate of expansion is proportional to how much is already known. The more we know, the faster we can know more. For example, we have amassed more knowledge since World War II than all the knowledge amassed in our 2-million-year evolution on this planet. In fact, the amount of knowledge that our scientists gain doubles approximately every 10 to 20 years.

  Michio Kaku

  War, Years, Civilization

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• I believe that traditional religious belief and scientific knowledge depict the universe in radically different ways. At the bedrock they are incompatible and mutually exclusive.

  E. O. Wilson

  Religious, Believe, Different

  "The Fascinated God: What Science Says to Faith and Faith to Scientists". Book by Robert E. Zinser, 2003.

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• The secret of improved plant breeding, apart from scientific knowledge, is love. While I was conducting experiments to make spineless cacti, I often talked to the plants. . . . "You have nothing to fear," I would tell them. "You don't need your defensive thorns. I will protect you." Gradually the useful plant of the desert emerged in a thornless variety.

  Luther Burbank

  Love, Secret, Needs

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• This whole universe, with all its vastness, grandeur and beauty, is nothing but sheer imagination. In spite of so many discoveries, researches and scientific knowledge, the creation remains a great unsolved riddle.

  Meher Baba

  Discovery, Imagination, Research

  "Meher Prabhu: Lord Meher, The Biography of the Avatar of the Age, Meher Baba". Book by Bhau Kalchuri, 1986.

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• During the first half of the present century we had an Alexander von Humboldt, who was able to scan the scientific knowledge of his time in its details, and to bring it within one vast generalization. At the present juncture, it is obviously very doubtful whether this task could be accomplished in a similar way, even by a mind with gifts so peculiarly suited for the purpose as Humboldt's was, and if all his time and work were devoted to the purpose.

  Hermann von Helmholtz

  Knowledge, Science, Mind

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• If the world kept a journal, many of the entries would be conversations concerning the advancement of scientific knowledge and its importance to humanity. I offer the following conversation as an added entry: "And what is as important as knowledge?" asked the mind. "Caring," answered the heart.

  Flavia Weedn

  Heart, Caring, Humanity

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• No longer is science asked to understand the world, or to improve any part of it. It is asked instead to immediately justify everything that happens... spectacular domination has cut down the vast tree of scientific knowledge in order to make itself a truncheon.

  Guy Debord

  Cutting, Order, Tree

  "Comments on the Society of the Spectacle". Book by Guy Debord, 1988.

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• Scientific knowledge scarcely exists amongst the higher classes of society. The discussion in the Houses of Lords or of Commons, which arise on the occurrence of any subjects connected with science, sufficiently prove this fact.

  Charles Babbage

  Government, Class, House

  Charles Babbage, Anthony Hyman (1989). “Science and Reform: Selected Works of Charles Babbage”, p.118, Cambridge University Press

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• Scepticism and refusal of authority is at the heart of scientific endeavour. Scientific knowledge dictates economic possibilities

  David Landes

  Heart, Economics, Possibility

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