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.
No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power. ... The time has come to consider how we might bring about a separation, as complete as possible, between Science and Government in all countries. I call this the disestablishment of science, in the same sense in which the churches have been disestablished and have become independent of the state.
You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? - Medicine.
Evolution works by selection, not by instruction. There is no final cause, no teleology, no purpose guiding the overall process
The word 'universe' is obviously not intended to have a plural, but science has evolved in such a way that we need a plural noun for something similar to what we ordinarily call our universe.
If we just stay at the crest of the mycelial wave, it will take us into heretofore unknown territories that will be just magnificent in their implications.
If you don't get a good night's sleep, the events of the day are not properly encoded in memory.
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