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.
Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality.
The world being unworthy to receive the Son of God directly from the hands of the Father, he gave his Son to Mary for the world to receive him from her.
Spiritual growth involves giving up the stories of your past so the universe can write a new one.
We must reason in natural philosophy not from what we hope, or even expect, but from what we perceive.
A fraudulent intent, however carefully concealed at the outset, will generally, in the end, betray itself.
Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.
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