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.
Some 5 billion years from now, there will be a last perfect day on Earth... then the sun will begin to die, life will be extinguished, the oceans will boil and evaporate away.
More women should actively participate in space flight. There are many well educated women working in the space industry; they are very good candidates.
An attempt to study the evolution of living organisms without reference to cytology would be as futile as an account of stellar evolution which ignored spectroscopy.
Humanity has nearly suffocated the globe with carbon dioxide, yet nuclear power plants that produce no such emissions are so mired in objections and obstruction that, despite renewed interest on every continent, it is unlikely another will be built in the United States.
My experiments proved that the radiation of uranium compounds can be measured with precision under determined conditions and that this radiation is an atomic property of the element of uranium.
Part of what it is to be scientifically-literate, it's not simply, 'Do you know what DNA is? Or what the Big Bang is?' That's an aspect of science literacy. The biggest part of it is do you know how to think about information that's presented in front of you.
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