Scientist Quotes
-
As variable as flu is, HIV makes flu look like the Rock of Gibraltar. The virus that causes AIDS is the trickiest pathogen scientists have ever confronted.
-
The natural scientist must be a modern materialist, a conscious adherent of the materialism represented by Marx, i.e., he must be a dialectical materialist.
-
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
-
Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.
-
A scientist is never certain. ... We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning.
-
As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice--there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.
-
It seems from my unique vantage point as both scientist and editor of JSE that substantial evidence exists of "something going on".
-
I think there is value in having practising scientists as leaders of research institutions.
-
I don't think scientists can dictate from above what we should do, because it's not a matter of scientific decision. If you want to have everybody living like a Beverly Hills millionaire, then 2 billion people might be too many. If we want to have a battery-chicken kind of world, with everybody having an absolute minimum diet, you might be able to support 10 billion.
-
Every cell has certain knowledge. I think knowledge is contained within the genetics, even. I think scientists will find that. I don't think there's a gay gene, though. They may argue that down, but I don't think that, because that's a preference.
-
It is shameful that there are so few women in science. In China there are many, many women in physics. There is a misconception in America that women scientists are all dowdy spinsters. This is the fault of men. In Chinese society, a woman is valued for what she is, and men encourage her to accomplishments yet she remains eternally feminine.
-
When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty - some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.
-
Your job as a scientist is to figure out how you're fooling yourself.
-
As a scientist, you feel a sense of team spirit for your country but you also have a sense of team spirit for the international community.
-
All scientists who've looked at it know we have to phase away from burning fossil fuels. That means we've got to put a lot of effort into alternate energy technologies, but we're still subsidizing fossil fuels and not subsidizing most of the alternatives. It's not going to be an easy transition.
-
Unscientific man is beset by a deplorable desire to have been right. The scientist is distinguished by a desire to be right.
-
A scientist is only a human being, a particle in the whole universe. How can the observations and logic of a particle measure the life and size of a phenomenon that is limitless?
-
Medical scientists are nice people, but you should not let them treat you.
-
Because the Western civilization is dominated by dualistic thinking, holistic scientists and philosophers don't get the recognition they deserve.
-
All interpretations made by a scientist are hypotheses, and all hypotheses are tentative. They must forever be tested and they must be revised if found to be unsatisfactory. Hence, a change of mind in a scientist, and particularly in a great scientist, is not only not a sign of weakness but rather evidence for continuing attention to the respective problem and an ability to test the hypothesis again and again.
-
I was a senior research scientist that changed the accepted view of the structure of the universe.I disproved one of the then widely accepted “laws” of physics, 'the conversation of parity', by proving that identical nuclear particles do not always act alike.
-
Most kids are not dreaming of being programmers, scientists or engineers.
-
The key role of entrepreneurs, like the most crucial role of scientists, is not to fill in the gaps in an existing market or theory, but to generate entirely new markets or theories. . .They stand before a canvas as empty as any painter's; a page as blank as any poet's.
-
To turn Karl [Popper]'s view on its head, it is precisely the abandonment of critical discourse that marks the transition of science. Once a field has made the transition, critical discourse recurs only at moments of crisis when the bases of the field are again in jeopardy. Only when they must choose between competing theories do scientists behave like philosophers.
