All exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation.
Interpretation
The essence of scientific inquiry is to approach truth through approximations rather than claiming absolute certainty.
Bertrand Russell's quote emphasizes that the pursuit of scientific knowledge does not yield absolute truths but rather approximations of reality. This understanding encourages humility and open-mindedness in the scientific community, recognizing that as we refine our theories and models, we draw closer to understanding the complexities of the natural world, even if we never achieve complete certainty.
In practice
In a lecture on scientific methodology, one might reference this quote to illustrate the nature of scientific progress.
St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.
Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
First you guess. Don't laugh, this is the most important step. Then you compute the consequences. Compare the consequences to experience. If it disagrees with experience, the guess is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't matter how beautiful your guess is or how smart you are or what your name is. If it disagrees with experience, it's wrong. That's all there is to it.
It is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.
Agriculture is the backbone of the livelihood security system of nearly 700 million people in the country and we need to build our food security on the foundation of home grown food.
Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Law Giver.
A science is said to be useful if its development tends to accentuate the existing inequalities in the distribution of wealth, or more directly promotes the destruction of human life.
While it is quite reasonable for scientists to be skeptical of new ideas that do not fit within the accepted realm of scientific knowledge, the best science often emerges from situations where results carefully obtained do not fit within the accepted paradigms.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.