Tout est poison, rien n'est poison, tout est une question de dose. Everything is poisonous, nothing is poisonous, it is all a matter of dose.
Claude BernardRead
The doubter is a true man of science: he doubts only himself and his interpretations, but he believes in science.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The true scientist questions their own understanding while maintaining faith in scientific principles.
In this quote, Claude Bernard emphasizes the importance of skepticism in the scientific process. A genuine scientist approaches their own thoughts and interpretations with doubt, recognizing the fallibility of their conclusions, while consistently upholding the principles of science itself as a reliable pursuit of knowledge. This duality fosters a descriptive and critical inquiry into the nature of reality, ensuring that scientists remain open to new evidence and perspectives.
Themes
ScienceDoubtSkepticismInterpretationUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about the scientific method, you could use this quote to emphasize the importance of healthy skepticism.
More from Claude Bernard
All quotes βWhen a physician is called to a patient, he should decide on the diagnosis, then the prognosis, and then the treatment. ... Physicians must know the evolution of the disease, its duration and gravity in order to predict its course and outcome. Here statistics intervene to guide physicians, by teaching them the proportion of mortal cases, and if observation has also shown that the successful and unsuccessful cases can be recognized by certain signs, then the prognosis is more certain.
Claude BernardRead
The goal of scientific physicians in their own science ... is to reduce the indeterminate. Statistics therefore apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still indeterminate.
Claude BernardRead
Theories are like a stairway; by climbing, science widens its horizon more and more, because theories embody and necessarily include proportionately more facts as they advance.
Claude BernardRead
True science teaches us to doubt and, in ignorance, to refrain.
Claude BernardRead
Now, a living organism is nothing but a wonderful machine endowed with the most marvellous properties and set going by means of the most complex and delicate mechanism.
Claude BernardRead
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