Order and reason, beauty and benevolence, are characteristics and conceptions which we find solely associated with the mind of man.
Karl PearsonRead
The unity of all science consists alone in its method, not in its material.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The essence of science lies in its methodology rather than the subjects it studies.
In this quote, Karl Pearson emphasizes that the true cohesion of scientific disciplines is found in the techniques and processes they employ to investigate phenomena, rather than the specific fields of study they cover. This highlights the importance of scientific method as a universal framework that transcends individual scientific specialties, suggesting that it is the approach to inquiry that unites science, regardless of the material or subject being examined.
Themes
ScienceMethodUnityResearchInquiry
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a lecture on the philosophy of science.
More from Karl Pearson
All quotes βIf I have put the case of science at all correctly, the reader will have recognised that modern science does much more than demand that it shall be left in undisturbed possession of what the theologian and metaphysician please to term its 'legitimate field'. It claims that the whole range of phenomena, mental as well as physical-the entire universe-is its field. It asserts that the scientific method is the sole gateway to the whole region of knowledge.
Karl PearsonRead
All great scientists have, in a certain sense, been great artists; the man with no imagination may collect facts, but he cannot make great discoveries.
Karl PearsonRead
The classification of facts and the formation of absolute judgments upon the basis of this classification-judgments independent of the idiosyncrasies of the individual mind-essentially sum up the aim and method of modern science. The scientific man has above all things to strive at self-elimination in his judgments, to provide an argument which is as true for each individual mind as for his own.
Karl PearsonRead
Statistics is the grammar of science.
Karl PearsonRead
That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially.
Karl PearsonRead
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