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 experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Understanding in experiments is dependent on having clear objectives.
This quote by Claude Bernard suggests that in scientific experimentation, the clarity of purpose is crucial for meaningful results. Without a clear hypothesis or understanding of the intended outcome, the discoveries made during the process may be misunderstood or overlooked, highlighting the importance of having a defined goal in research.
Themes
ExperimentationUnderstandingScienceHypothesisResearch
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on scientific methods, a professor might quote Bernard to emphasize the importance of having a clear hypothesis.
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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