Every work of science great enough to be well remembered for a few generations affords some exemplification of the defective state of the art of reasoning of the time when it was written; and each chief step in science has been a lesson in logic.
Interpretation
Scientific advancements often reflect the reasoning limitations of their time, teaching us important lessons in logic.
In this quote, Charles Sanders Peirce highlights how significant scientific works not only contribute to knowledge but also reveal the shortcomings in logic and reasoning prevalent during their creation. Each breakthrough in science serves as an opportunity for reflection and learning, showcasing the evolution of thought and the advancement of rational understanding over generations.
In practice
During a lecture on the history of science, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of critical thinking.
The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking.
Notwithstanding all that has been discovered since Newton's time, his saying that we are little children picking up pretty pebbles on the beach while the whole ocean lies before us unexplored remains substantially as true as ever, and will do so though we shovel up the pebbles by steam shovels and carry them off in carloads.
My language is the sum total of myself.
All the evolution we know of proceeds from the vague to the definite.
The third class consists of men to whom nothing seems great but reason. If force interests them, it is not in its exertion, but in that it has a reason and a law. For men of the first class, nature is a picture; for men of the second class, it is an opportunity; for men of the third class, it is a cosmos, so admirable, that to penetrate to its ways seems to them the only thing that makes life worth living. These are the men whom we see possessed by a passion to learn.
A quality is something capable of being completely embodied. A law never can be embodied in its character as a law except by determining a habit. A quality is how something may or might have been. A law is how an endless future must continue to be.
I was taught over and over again that the accumulation of random mutations led to evolutionary change - led to new species. I believed it until I looked for evidence.
Based on the science, you can make somewhat clear statements: The number of people who can survive on six hours of sleep without impairment is zero.
If our local, observable universe is embedded in a larger structure, a multiverse, then there's other places in this larger structure that have denizens in them that call their local environs the universe. And conditions in those other places could be very different. Or they could be pretty similar to what we have here.
We must alter theory to adapt it to nature, but not nature to adapt it to theory.
I lose sleep at night wondering whether we are intelligent enough to figure out the universe. I don't know.
There is a duality in recognising what an incredible disease it is - in terms of its origin, that it emerges out of a normal cell. It's a reminder of what a wonderful thing a normal cell is. In a very cold, scientific sense, I think a cancer cell is a kind of biological marvel.
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