One may say that in a state of science where fundamental concepts have to be changed, tradition is both the condition for progress and a hindrance. Hence, it usually takes a long time before the new concepts are generally accepted.
Interpretation
Tradition can both aid and impede scientific progress.
Heisenberg's quote speaks to the dual role of tradition in the realm of science. While established concepts and beliefs provide a foundation upon which new ideas can be built, they can also create resistance to change, making it difficult for innovative thoughts to gain acceptance. This tension highlights the challenge of reconciling the old with the new in scientific advancement.
In practice
In a lecture on the evolution of scientific theories, one might quote Heisenberg to emphasize the challenges of adopting new ideas.
Although the theory of relativity makes the greatest of demands on the ability for abstract thought, still it fulfills the traditional requirements of science insofar as it permits a division of the world into subject and object (observer and observed) and, hence, a clear formulation of the law of causality.
It was about three o'clock at night when the final result of the calculation [which gave birth to quantum mechanics] lay before me ... At first I was deeply shaken ... I was so excited that I could not think of sleep. So I left the house ... and awaited the sunrise on top of a rock.
It is generally believed that our science is empirical and that we draw our concepts and our mathematical constructs from the empirical data. If this were the whole truth, we should, when entering into a new field, introduce only such quantities as can directly be observed, and formulate natural laws only by means of these quantities.
When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity ? And why turbulence ? I really believe he will have an answer for the first.
The end of the First World War had thrown Germany's youth into great turmoil. The reins of power had fallen from the hands of a deeply disillusioned older generation, and the younger ones drew together in larger and smaller groups to blaze new paths or, at least, to discover a new star to steer by.
The Same organizing forces that have shaped nature in all her forms are also responsible for the structure of our minds.
Too many sit at the banquet table of the gospel of Jesus Christ and merely nibble at the feast placed before them. They go through the motions - attending their meetings perhaps, glancing at scriptures, repeating familiar prayers - but their hearts are far away.
You'll live forever in our hearts, big man. That particularly galled me, because it implied the immortality of those left behind: You will live forever in my memory, because I will live forever! I AM YOUR GOD NOW, DEAD BOY! I OWN YOU!
People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.
Bright was the light of my last martini on my moral horizon
If the thrill of hunting were in the hunt, or even in the marksmanship, a camera would do just as well.
All those evil doctrines about God that work misery and madness have their origin in the brains of the wise and prudent, not in the hearts of children.
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