To ask the proper question is half of knowing.
Roger BaconRead
The strongest arguments prove nothing so long as the conclusions are not verified by experience. Experimental science is the queen of sciences and the goal of all speculation.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Experience is essential for validating arguments; true knowledge comes from experimentation.
Roger Bacon emphasizes the importance of empirical evidence in science, highlighting that arguments, no matter how convincing, hold no weight unless they are supported by real-world experience. He argues that experimental science should be the foundation of knowledge, serving as the guiding force behind all theoretical speculation.
Themes
ScienceExperienceKnowledgeEmpiricalArguments
In practice
Example use cases
In a science seminar, to illustrate the importance of experimental verification.
More from Roger Bacon
All quotes →There are two modes of acquiring knowledge, namely by reasoning and experience. Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.
Roger BaconRead
A man is crazy who writes a secret in any other way than one which will conceal it from the vulgar.
Roger BaconRead
There are two modes of knowledge: through argument and through experience. Argument brings conclusions and compels us to concede them, but it does not cause certainty nor remove doubts that the mind may rest in truth, unless this is provided by experience.
Roger BaconRead
The calendar is intolerable to all wisdom, the horror of all astronomy, and a laughing stock from a mathematician's point of view.
Roger BaconRead
Mathematics is the gate and key to science.
Roger BaconRead
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