Science, at bottom, is really anti-intellectual. It always distrusts pure reason, and demands the production of objective fact.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that science is grounded in empirical evidence rather than solely on reasoning or intellect.
H. L. Mencken's quote highlights the essence of science as a discipline that prioritizes objective facts over abstract reasoning. It suggests that, at its core, science is skeptical of purely intellectual theories, favoring tangible evidence that can be observed and tested. This viewpoint underscores the importance of empirical data in scientific inquiry, which often challenges conventional wisdom and invites critical scrutiny of ideas.
In practice
During a lecture on the methodology of scientific research, this quote could be used to illustrate the need for evidence in scientific claims.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
Supervised learning works so well when you have the right data set, but ultimately unsupervised learning is going to be a really important component in building really intelligent systems - if you look at how humans learn, it's almost entirely unsupervised.
Now I know what the atom looks like.
Statistical science is indispensable to modern statesmanship. In legislation as in physical science it is beginning to be understood that we can control terrestrial forces only by obeying their laws. The legislator must formulate in his statutes not only the national will, but also those great laws of social life revealed by statistics.
In the history of physics, there have been three great revolutions in thought that first seemed absurd yet proved to be true. The first proposed that the earth, instead of being stationary, was moving around at a great and variable speed in a universe that is much bigger than it appears to our immediate perception. That proposal, I believe, was first made by Aristarchos two millenia ago ... Remarkably enough, the name Aristarchos in Greek means best beginning.
Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible.
Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe.
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