Scientific - Quotes
How do I really feel about the possibility that all my actions, and those of my friends, are ultimately governed by mathematical principles (...)? I can live with that. I would, indeed, prefer to have these actions controlled by something residing in some (...) aspect of Plato`s fabulous mathematical world than to have them be subject to the kind of simplistic base motives, such as pleasure-seeking, personal greed, or aggressive violence, that many would argue to be the implications of a strictly scientific standpoint.
The existing scientific concepts cover always only a very limited part of reality, and the other part that has not yet been understood is infinite.
In the history of science, ever since the famous trial of Galileo, it has repeatedly been claimed that scientific truth cannot be reconciled with the religious interpretation of the world. Although I an now convinced that scientific truth is unassailable in its own field, I have never found it possible to dismiss the content of religious thinking as simply part of an outmoded phase in the consciousness of mankind, a part we shall have to give up from now on, Thus in the course of my life I have repeatedly been compelled to ponder on the relationship of these two regions of though, for I have never been able to doubt the reality of that to which they point.
It has certainly been true in the past that what we call intelligence and scientific discovery have conveyed a survival advantage. It is not so clear that this is still the case: our scientific discoveries may well destroy us all, and even if they don't, a complete unified theory may not make much difference to our chances of survival.
No nation, no religion, no economic system, no body of knowledge, is likely to have all the answers for our survival. There must be many social systems that would work far better than any now in existence. In the scientific tradition, our task is to find them.
Nearly all scientific research leads nowhere - or, if it does lead somewhere, not in the direction it started off.
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die.
Abstract thought can anticipate by centuries hypotheses that find a use - or confirmation - in scientific inquiry.
That which seems intuitive to us now is the result of scientific and philosophical elaborations in the past.
A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections - a mere heart of stone.
The ability to understand something before it`s observed is at the heart of scientific thinking.
I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.