Quotes About Science

when Big Science and politics tangle, science always loses

Remember that every science is based upon an abstraction. An abstraction is taking a point of view or looking at things under a certain aspect or from a particular angle. All sciences are differentiated by their abstraction.

The science of a religious man must be scientific; the religion of a scientific man must be religious.

The conclusion is that the physical theory and the mathematical theory of science are valid methods but not valid philosophies. Facts need interpretation the physical theory forgets that it has no such principles of interpretation with its own bosom.

Abstraction is the condition of the science of metaphysics, but in no way is its content.

As scientific truths put us in an intelligent relaton with the cosmos, as historic truth puts us in temporal relation with the rise and fall of civilization, so does Christ put us in intelligent relation with God the Father; for He is the only possible Word by which God can address Himself to a world of sinners.

Philosophy, like science, is only a collection of hypotheses, introduced for the usefulness of the ensemble, or for economy of thought.

This is what Aristotle meant when he said that the object of science is the necessary and the universal; man and not this man.

The Angelic Doctor himself is not certain that the astronomical theories of his own time explain the heavens and the movements of the sun and the stars

The physicist takes water, abstracts its quantitatively measurable aspects, reaches results about these aspects, and ignores the rest.

The physical theory suffers from the same affect as humanism; it attempts to live on its own fat and breathe the very air which it has already exhaled from its scientific lungs.

The sciences need philosophy; philosophy, in turn, needs the sciences. On both sides, certain naive minds, too confident in their own forces and satisfied with ideas entirely too superficial, believed in the universal value of a single method. On both side a severe critique must lead each method back to its just limits, and teach them to ask aid of the other methods and manners of approach which, by their convergence, will permit the mind to embrace the diverse aspects of reality

The familiar would of sense experience is not entirely objectively real, but is to some extent a product of the scientists' reasoning.

Hearing is the motion of molecules; sound is a wave in the atmosphere; solidity is the characteristic of spatial juxtaposition of atoms; smell is something given off by a body, rather than something belonging to a body.

There would be a course on the philosophy of history; another year the philosophy of Marxism, another the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of science, etc. All of these were presented in the light of the thought of St. Thomas.

New Paganism may be defined as an outlook on life that holds to the sufficiency of human science without faith, and the sufficiency of human power without grace. In other words, its two tenets are Scientism which is a deification of the experimental method, and Humanism, which is a glorification of a man who makes God to his own image and likeness.

Finite intelligence needs many words in order to express ideas; but God speaks once and for all within Himself—one single Word which reaches the abyss of all things that are known and can be known. In that Word of God are hidden all the treasures of wisdom, all the secrets of sciences, all the designs of the arts, all the knowledge of mankind.

love needs no reasons. Sex asks science to defend it; love never asks "Why?" It says, "I love you." Love is its own reason.

It is well to remember that authorities in the field of science are really opinions, and that such authorities have a wax nose and can be led anywhere one chooses.

Finite intelligence needs many words in order to express ideas; but God speaks once and for all within Himself—one single Word which reaches the abyss of all things that are known and can be known. In that Word of God are hidden all the treasures of wisdom, all the secrets of sciences, all the designs of the arts, all the knowledge of mankind. But this knowledge, compared to the Word, is only the feeblest broken syllable.

La prétendue baguette des fées était moins puissante que ne l'est aujourd'hui la science des hommes.

E pur si muove. (And yet it moves.) ( What Galileo purportedly muttered after torturers forced him to recant his theory that the earth orbits the sun .)

Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.

I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments and demonstrations.