Quote: science is public knowledge; a group of individuals dividing their labour but continuously and jealously checking each other's contributions [»zimaJM_1968]

Quote: science, correctly applied, has overwhelming persuasive force; e.g., an experiment can demonstrate that the world behaves as the experimenter hypothesized [»zimaJM_1968]

Quote: the subject of science consists of immediate judgments that can have universal agreement [»campNR_1919, OK]

Quote: science is about asking questions sliced thin enough that they can be answered, definitely, once and for all [»campNR_1919, OK]

Quote: in physics we try to say things that no one knew before in a way that everyone can understand [»campNR_1919, OK]

Quote: universal agreement is possible for judgments of simultaneity, coincidence, and number [»campNR_1919, OK]

Quote: science is about knowledge, the rules of evidence, and how to distinguish truth from fraud or show [»feynRP11_1963]

Quote: scientific literature is memory, continually rewritten; on how to think about a subject [»zimaJM_1968]

Quote: nothing can be made of nothing; otherwise any breed could be born from any other; people would pop out of the sea

Quote: physics should only describe the correlation of observations; there is no real world with causality [»heisW_1927]

Quote: Newton's first rule--admit only true and sufficient causes; Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes [»newtI_1685, OK]

Quote: Newton's second rule--assign the same causes to the same natural effects; e.g., respiration in man and beast, the light of a fire and the sun [»newtI_1685, OK]

Quote: rudimentary organs appear frequently and have no value; must be due to natural law; species are not independent of pre-existings species [»wallAR9_1855]

Quote: the natural law that everything has a cause and that all events are empirically determined lies at the foundation of a connected system of appearances; i.e., nature [»kantI_1781, OK]

Quote: an individual is the direct source of another individual; there are no general explanatory factors; may share a common formula [»aris_322a]

Quote: all the scientist creates in a fact is the unambiguous language in which he enunciates it [»poinH_1905, OK]

Quote: atomic physics has taught us how, without leaving common language, it is possible to create a framework sufficiently wide for an exhaustive description of new experience [»bohrN_1958]

Quote: recorded history is brief; man was already living in sturdy towers, working the soil, and sailing the seas; only reason can give us a longer view [»lucr_55]

Quote: can understand some properties of things whether they are near or far; e.g., learned the roundness of the moon before the earth

Quote: there is no reason to fear mutation, corruption, and generation of remote objects [»drakS_1978]

Quote: SIMPLICIO: heavenly and earthly phenomena must be different; the same proof can not explain the course of planets and projectiles [»lakaI_1976]

Quote: quantum electrodynamics describes all physical phenomena except gravity, radioactivity and nuclear physics; there is no significant difference between experiment and theory [»feynRP_1985]

Quote: there is no science of accidental being; no systematic account of the extraordinary; science concerns what is always or normally so [»aris_322a]

Quote: if the same force and nature abide everywhere, there are other worlds with other races of people and other kinds of animals in other places [»lucr_55]

Quote: nature does not act by means of many things when it can do so by means of a few

Quote: to be scientific, it is necessary to abstract from reality [»galiG_1638]

Quote: science is the attempt at the posterior reconstruction of existence through conceptualization [»einsA_1941]

Quote: use materials and shapes that are nearest the scientific abstractions; e.g., heavy balls and cylindrical arrows follow parabolic paths

Quote: the conclusions demonstrated in the abstract are altered in the concrete; e.g., ignoring the curvature of the earth [»galiG_1638]

Quote: the schema of a science must give a priori the plan of it; but the schema rarely corresponds with the originator's idea or description [»kantI_1781, OK]

Quote: we ought to explain and define a science according to ideas based in reason; as suggested by the natural unity of the parts of the science already accumulated

Quote: to get the law from experiment, it is necessary to generalize by analogy [»poinH_1905, OK]

Quote: science is the knowledge of the consequences of names; the dependance of one fact upon another; the ability to make things happen [»hobbT_1651, OK]

Quote: in science we must rise above the level of direct observation; need theoretical constructs to formulate high-level laws and hypotheses [»hempCG_1951]

Quote: the object of all science is to coordinate our experiences and to bring them into a logical system [»einsA_1956, OK]

Quote: the mathematical abstractions of general relativity enlarge the scope of objective description and eliminate subjective elements [»bohrN_1958]

Quote: science deals with forms, not sensible primary beings nor mathematical entities

Quote: if an event is to be explained, it must be viewed as nonunique, a member of a class [»pylyZW_1986]

Quote: concepts should fit nature at its causal joints

Quote: scientific properties are necessary but not a priori, e.g., gold has atomic number 79, but was still gold beforehand [»kripSA_1980]

Quote: biological concepts are simple but they include extreme complexity; otherwise no theory or no need for a theory [»thomR_1975]

Quote: cannot abandon, actually and forever, the idea of direct representation of physical reality; nor believe that events in nature behave as a game of chance [»einsA5_1940]

Quote: evidence is to truth, as the sap to the tree; science, knowledge, and meaning are dependent on evidence of the senses [»hobbT_1650, OK]

Quote: the soul of a fact is its unexpected order

Quote: every scientific fact is formed of many crude facts

Quote: a fact becomes interesting if it may aid in predicting other facts or if it confirms a law

Quote: the most interesting facts occur frequently [»poinH_1908, OK]

Quote: if all facts were complex, they would not repeat; a chance occurrence of a thousand circumstances

Quote: a statement in isolation has no experiential implications; need other hypothesis, e.g., from science; experiential meaning is elliptical [»hempCG_1951]

Quote: experience is primary over testimony; if others had seen the experiment, they would change their mind [»galiG_1623]

Quote: new experience is the beginning of new knowledge; gives hope of knowing somewhat that he knew not before [»hobbT_1650, OK]

Quote: the concept of truth is rooted in the senses, what is real; if the senses are untrue, all reasoning is wrong [»lucr_55]

Quote: search guided only by the heuristics of "interestingness" is the mechanism for science and may be best for social design [»simoHA_1981]

Quote: science ascertains what is, while religion ascertains what should be; a conflict between them appears impossible [»einsA_1941]

Quote: neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events

Quote: whether you want something to happen or not, how you judge the value of a result, lies outside of science [»feynRP6_1956]

Quote: radical freedom of will is impossible under a scientific world view

Quote: sweep away dread of the supernatural by observing Nature and her laws [»lucr_55]

Quote: the earth, sun, skies, sea, stars, and moon are not holy bodies; they are inert, like the dead [»lucr_55]

Quote: science shows opposite tendencies towards unity--simplicity and diversity--complication [»poinH_1902, OK]

Quote: God choose the world that is simplest in theories and richest in phenomena

Quote: suppose there were 60 billion chemical elements uniformly distributed; there would be no science and perhaps no thought and life; every pebble would be new

Quote: physics must fuse the continuous and the discontinuous; the universal interaction of things and the simplicity of indivisible elements [»debrL_1937]

Quote: divers, possible explanations for the movements of the stars; which is right? we cannot say, but one of them has to hold true [»lucr_55]

Quote: any fact can be generalized in an infinite number of ways. The choice can only be guided by considerations of simplicity

Quote: hypotheses are what we lack the least

Quote: the system of concepts is the creation of man. It is bound by simplicity and the most nearly possible certain, intuitive connection to the totality of sense-experience

Quote: it is more sensible to rotate the earth than to rotate the skies; otherwise an immense number of extremely large bodies move with inconceivable velocities [»galiG_1632]

Quote: nature does not act by means of many things when it can do so by means of a few

Quote: nature employs the first, simplest, and easiest means; e.g., fish and birds use the simplest, easiest means to swim and fly

Quote: every substance has a true unity that is indivisible [»leibGW_1686c]

Quote: in every parcel of matter there is an infinity of created things

Quote: a monad has no parts, it is eternal; only its internal qualities and actions change; i.e., its perceptions of the external and its appetitions of these perceptions [»leibGW_1714]

Quote: every body acts on every other; everything is linked [»leibGW_1714]

Quote: every monad is a living mirror; representing the universe with its own point of view; orderly

Quote: quantum physics blurs the distinction between subjective and objective, while classical physics separates the objective world from subjects and their measuring instruments [»debrL_1937]

Quote: quantum electrodynamics describes Nature as absurd

Quote: although science starts with judgments obtainable with universal agreement, the end result is a creative achievement full of personal choice [»campNR_1919, OK]

Quote: knowledge cannot spring from experience alone; the human mind must first construct forms independently before comparing them against observed fact [»einsA11_1930]

Quote: only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach the elementary laws of nature

Quote: the search for truth is more precious than its possession

Quote: search guided only by the heuristics of "interestingness" is the mechanism for science and may be best for social design [»simoHA_1981]

Quote: Galileo's perfection of the telescope from news that it was possible [»galiG_1623]

Quote: rule of continuity -- no change takes place by leaps and bounds

Quote: in substances, change happens spontaneously and in an orderly way [»leibGW4_1695]

Quote: no special laws for equal bodies or bodies at rest; since rest is vanishingly small motion, and equality is vanishingly small inequality [»leibGW4_1695]

Quote: when instances approach each other continually and eventually merge, the consequences or outcomes must do so also; e.g., parabola is an ellipse

Quote: very important, unscientific knowledge of particular circumstances of time and place [»hayeFA9_1945]

Quote: if science just needed logical possibility then astrology is a scientific activity [»taubM_1961]

Quote: irreconcilable schools of thought indicate a non-science, particularly when there is personal abuse and intolerance of others views [»zimaJM_1968]

Quote: understanding an event means fitting it into a preconceived scheme of thought; could be science or a private delusion [»weinGM_1982]

Quote: Stoic theory of error--false ideas are part of external reality but they can't mature into clear and distinct ideas (science) [»lakaI_1976]

Quote: proper names such as 'Aristotle' may have varying senses; should be avoided in science and perfect languages [»fregG_1892]

Quote: 'The will of the people' has an ambiguous nominatum; allows demagogic misuse; should prevent such expressions, at least in science [»fregG_1892]

Quote: how can one distinguish between science and speculation? Is there a logical evaluation of a theory?