Half of what we know is wrong, the purpose of science is to determine which half.
Arthur KornbergRead
No matter how counter-intuitive it may seem, basic research has proven over and over to be the lifeline of practical advances in medicine.
Interpretation
Basic research is essential for making significant medical advancements.
Arthur Kornberg emphasizes the importance of fundamental research in medicine, asserting that practical breakthroughs and improvements in medical practices often stem from basic scientific inquiries. This highlights the necessity of investing in foundational studies, as they provide the groundwork for innovative solutions and medical advancements.
In practice
A scientist could use this quote in a presentation to advocate for funding basic research.
Half of what we know is wrong, the purpose of science is to determine which half.
As in biomedical science, pioneering industrial inventions have not been mothered by necessity. Rather, inventions for which there was no commercial use only later became the commercial airplanes, xerography and lasers on which modern society depends.
At the heart of quantum mechanics is a rule that sometimes governs politicians or CEOs-as long as no one is watching, anything goes.
If we do discover more than one type of life on Earth, we can be fairly certain that the universe is teeming with it, for it would be inconceivable that life started twice here but never on all the other earth-like planets.
...great difficulties are felt at first and these cannot be overcome except by starting from experiments .. and then be conceiving certain hypotheses ... But even so, very much hard work remains to be done and one needs not only great perspicacity but often a degree of good fortune.
The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics.
There's something really beautiful about science, that human beings can ask these questions and can answer them. You can make models of nature and understand how it works.
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