Science is rooted in the will to truth. With the will to truth it stands or falls. Lower the standard even slightly and science becomes diseased at the core. Not only science, but man. The will to truth, pure and unadulterated, is among the essential conditions of his existence; if the standard is compromised he easily becomes a kind of tragic caricature of himself.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the essential role of a commitment to truth in the practice of science and human existence.
Max Wertheimer's quote highlights that science relies fundamentally on the pursuit of truth; without this commitment, its integrity is compromised, leading to a degradation not only of scientific inquiry but also of human identity. The assertion underlines that when standards are lowered, both science and humanity risk becoming distorted reflections of their true selves, suggesting that a pure adherence to truth is vital for genuine existence.
In practice
During a science conference, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of ethical standards in research.
The basic thesis of gestalt theory might be formulated thus: there are contexts in which what is happening in the whole cannot be deduced from the characteristics of the separate pieces, but conversely; what happens to a part of the whole is, in clearcut cases, determined by the laws of the inner structure of its whole.
There are wholes, the behavior of which is not determined by that of their individual elements, but where the part-processes are themselves determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole. It is the hope of Gestalt theory to determine the nature of such wholes.
Thinking consists in envisaging, realizing structural features and structural requirements; proceeding in accordance with, and determined by, these requirements; thereby changing the situation in the direction of structural improvements.
If your economy grows [by] 4 percent, you ought to reduce child mortality 4 percent.
We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.
We live on a minute island of known things. Our undiminished wonder at the mystery which surrounds us is what makes us human. In science fiction we can approach that mystery, not in small, everyday symbols, but in bigger ones of space and time.
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
I still hear some people say that science takes the wonder out of life. Those people are utterly wrong. Science takes us to the wonder
Sometimes I had to spend a whole day mixing a boiling mass with a heavy iron rod nearly as large as myself. I would be broken with fatigue at the day's end. Other days, on the contrary, the work would be a most minute and delicate fractional crystallization, in the effort to concentrate the radium.
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