Quotes About Science

Plants grow more quickly if you talk to them in a Geordie accent.

Astronomers have recently discovered a massive amount of alcohol in our region of the Milky Way. The giant cloud of methanol measures 288 billion miles across. Although the alcohol we like to drink is grain alcohol (otherwise known as ethyl alcohol or ethanol) and methanol would poison us, the discovery goes some way to supporting the theory that the universe is here so that we can drink it.

The Sun is white (with a hint of turquoise), not yellow.

A single sperm contains 37.5 MB of DNA information. One ejaculation represents a data transfer of 15,875 GB

They had not done the wild things that had no basis in their understanding of the workings of the body. They had not given quinine or typhoid vaccine to influenza victims in the wild hope that because it worked against malaria or typhoid it might work against influenza. Others had done these things and more, but they had not.

most important lesson for every man of science, not to be satisfied with loose thinking and half-proofs, not to speculate and theorize but to observe closely and carefully.

All influenza viruses mutate constantly

WHILE SCIENCE was confronting nature, society began to confront the effects of nature. For this went beyond the ability of any individual or group of individuals to respond to. To have any chance in alleviating the devastation of the epidemic required organization, coordination, implementation. It required leadership and it required that institutions follow that leadership.

In 1881 he became the first to isolate the pneumococcus, a few weeks before Pasteur and Koch. (None of the three recognized the bacteria's full importance.) Sternberg also first observed that white blood cells engulfed bacteria, a key to understanding the immune system.

Henry James described the Hopkins as a place where, despite "the immensities of pain" one thought of "fine poetry . . . and the high beauty of applied science. . . . Grim human alignments became, in their cool vistas, delicate symphonies in white. . . . Doctors ruled, for me, so gently, the whole still concert.

The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying." A brilliant scientist, later president of the Royal Society, he advised investigators, "Sit down before a fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing." He also believed that learning had purpose, stating, "The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

The question "why" is too deep for science. Science instead believes it can only learn "how" something occurs.

So the advances of science actually, and ironically, led to "therapeutic nihilism." Physicians became disenchanted with traditional treatments, but they had nothing with which to replace them.

Throughout known history there have been periodic pandemics of influenza, usually several a century. They erupt when a new influenza virus emerges. And the nature of the influenza virus makes it inevitable that new viruses emerge.

Religion is inherently conservative; even one proposing a new God only creates a new order. The question "why" is too deep for science. Science instead believes it can only learn "how" something occurs.

Jacob Henle, the first scientist to formulate the modern germ theory, echoed Francis Bacon when he said, "Nature answers only when she is questioned.

Science is at all times potentially revolutionary; any new answer to a seemingly mundane question about "how" something occurs may uncover chains of causation that throw all preceding order into disarray and that threaten religious beliefs as well.

The greatest challenge of science, its art, lies in asking an important question and framing it in a way that allows it to be broken into manageable pieces, into experiments that can be conducted that ultimately lead to answers.

The revolution of modern science and especially medical science began as science not only focused on this answer to "What can I know?" but more important, changed its method of inquiry, changed its answer to "How can I know it?

The greatest challenge of science, its art, lies in asking an important question and framing it in a way that allows it to be broken into manageable pieces, into experiments that can be conducted that ultimately lead to answers. To do this requires a certain kind of genius, one that probes vertically and sees horizontally.

Nothing in science is as damning as the inability of an outside experimenter to reproduce results.

Paracelsus declared he would investigate nature "not by following that which those of old taught, but by our own observation of nature, confirmed by . . . experiment and by reasoning thereon.

helped lead to a new conception of disease as something with an identity of its own, an objective existence.

They had not done the wild things that had no basis in their understanding of the workings of the body. They had not given quinine or typhoid vaccine to influenza victims in the wild hope that because it worked against malaria or typhoid it might work against influenza.