A conceptual scheme is never discarded merely because of a few stubborn facts with which it cannot be reconciled; a conceptual scheme is either modified or replaced by a better one, never abandoned with nothing left to take its place.
Interpretation
Conceptual schemes evolve based on new information, rather than being wholly discarded.
James Bryant Conant's quote emphasizes that our frameworks for understanding the world are resilient and adaptive. When faced with conflicting facts, rather than outright abandoning a conceptual scheme, it is altered or improved, reflecting the continuous nature of human understanding and the pursuit of knowledge where new insights lead to better explanations without leaving us intellectually adrift.
In practice
During a lecture on scientific paradigms, this quote can highlight how scientific theories evolve over time.
I venture to define science as a series of interconnected concepts and conceptual schemes arising from experiment and observation and fruitful of further experiments and observations. The test of a scientific theory is, I suggest, its fruitfulness.
Some of mankind's most terrible misdeeds have been committed under the spell of certain magic words or phrases.
In every section of the entire area where the word science may properly be applied, the limiting factor is a human one. We shall have rapid or slow advance in this direction or in that depending on the number of really first-class men who are engaged in the work in question. ... So in the last analysis, the future of science in this country will be determined by our basic educational policy.
Let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech harmonize with life.
Sometimes I wonder if he wasn't born dead. I never met a man who was less interested in the living. Sometimes I think that's the trouble with the world: too many people in high places who are stone-cold dead.
Etymologically, 'patient' means sufferer.
If we desire a society of peace, then we cannot achieve such a society through violence. If we desire a society without discrimination, then we must not discriminate against anyone in the process of building this society. If we desire a society that is democratic, then democracy must become a means as well as an end.
Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds.
When we adopt—and when we encourage a culture of adoption in our churches and communities—we’re picturing something that’s true about our God. We, like Jesus, see what our Father is doing and do likewise (John 5:19). And what our Father is doing, it turns out, is fighting for orphans, making them sons and daughters.
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