Occupation: Writer Birth: February 28, 1915 Death: October 2, 1987
It is naïve to suppose that the acceptance of evolution theory depends upon the evidence of a number of so-called "proofs"; it depends rather upon th….
It is a truism to say that a good experiment is precisely that which spares us the exertion of thinking: the better it is, the less we have to worry ….
The fact that scientists do not consciously practice a formal methodology is very poor evidence that no such methodology exists. It could be said-has….
Science is the art of the solvable..
Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth..
The intensity of a conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is true or false. The importance of the strength of our convicti….
I shall borrow two words used for a slightly different purpose by the great demographer Alfred Lotka to distinguish between the two systems of heredi….
In no sense other than an utterly trivial one is reproduction the inverse of chemical disintegration. It is a misunderstanding of genetics to suppose….
To deride the hope of progress is the ultimate fatuity, the last word in poverty of spirit and meanness of mind..
No scientist is admired for failing in the attempt to solve problems that lie beyond his competence. ... Good scientists study the most important pro….
How have people come to be taken in by The Phenomenon of Man? We must not underestimate the size of the market for works of this kind [pseudoscience/….
[A certain class of explanations in science are] analgesics that dull the ache of incomprehension without removing the cause..
If the task of scientific methodology is to piece together an account of what scientists actually do, then the testimony of biologists should be hear….
The art of research [is] the art of making difficult problems soluble by devising means of getting at them..
Considered in its entirety, psychoanalysis won't do. It is an end product, moreover, like a dinosaur or a zeppelin; no better theory can ever be erec….
Psychoanalytic theory is the most stupendous intellectual confidence trick of the twentieth century and a terminal product as well-something akin to ….
Scientists are people of very dissimilar temperaments doing different things in very different ways. Among scientists are collectors, classifiers and….
There is much else in the literary idiom of nature-philosophy: nothing-buttery, for example, always part of the minor symptomatology of the bogus..
An experiment not worth doing is not worth doing well..
Scientists are entitled to be proud of their accomplishments, and what accomplishments can they call 'theirs' except the things they have done or tho….
I do not propose to criticize the fatuous argument I have just outlined; here, to expound is to expose..