QuoteProject
The progress of Science consists in observing interconnections and in showing with a patient ingenuity that the events of this ever-shifting world are but examples of a few general relations, called laws. To see what is general in what is particular, and what is permanent in what is transitory, is the aim of scientific thought.
Alfred North Whitehead
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Scientific progress involves recognizing patterns and relationships in the world around us.

This quote emphasizes that the essence of scientific inquiry lies in the ability to discern underlying principles that govern diverse phenomena. Alfred North Whitehead asserts that true scientific thought seeks to connect seemingly isolated events through broader laws, highlighting the importance of understanding both the specific and the universal in our observations of the world.

Themes

ScienceObservationPatternsLawsKnowledge

In practice

Example use cases

In a lecture on the importance of scientific thinking, one might quote this to illustrate how scientists interpret data.

More from Alfred North Whitehead

All practical teachers know that education is a patient process of mastery of details, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
The vitality of thought is in adventure. Idea's won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervour, live for it, and, if need be, die for it. Their inheritors receive the idea, perhaps now strong and successful, but without inheriting the fervour; so the idea settles down to a comfortable middle age, turns senile, and dies.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, seek simplicity and distrust it.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
As society is now constituted, a literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the Gospels would mean sudden death.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
I consider Christianity to be one of the great disasters of the human race... It would be impossible to imagine anything more un - Christianlike than theology.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
Inventive genius requires pleasurable mental activity as a condition for its vigorous exercise. "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb. "Necessity is the mother of futile dodges" is much closer to the truth. The basis of growth of modern invention is science, and science is almost wholly the outgrowth of pleasurable intellectual curiosity.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead

Similar quotes

Scientists study the world as it is, engineers create the world that never has been.
Theodore Von KarmanRead
Some experts say we are moving back to the pre-antibiotic era. No. This will be a post-antibiotic era. In terms of new replacement antibiotics, the pipeline is virtually dry. A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it. Things as common as strep throat or a child's scratched knee could once again kill.
Margaret ChanRead
Before the discovery of quantum mechanics, the framework of physics was this: If you tell me how things are now, I can then use the laws of physics to calculate, and hence predict, how things will be later.
Brian GreeneRead
We consider it vital that the community of nations be drawn together in an orderly, disciplined, rational way to review the history of our global environment, to assess the potential for future climate change, and to develop effective programs.
George H. W. BushRead
I've always been very one-sided about science, and when I was younger, I concentrated almost all my effort on it.
Richard P. FeynmanRead
We have this very clean picture of science, you know, these well-established rules with which we make predictions. But when you're really doing science, when you're doing research, you're at the edge of what we know.
Lisa RandallRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.