Quotes About Science

We certainly wouldn't want scientists to base anything on science!

there is no metaphysically neutral starting point from which science can lift itself up by its own intellectual bootstraps.

The relation of science to metaphysics and theology is not fundamentally a scientific question, nor is it fundamentally an empirical, historical, sociological, or even philosophical question, though of course it is all of these. Rather it is fundamentally a theological question, logically consequent upon the question of the relation between God and the world.

Metaphysical judgments are inherent in what counts as empirical evidence, and these judgments mediate between science and theology proper.

The notion of a "pure" science free from metaphysical and theological contamination is a fiction and therefore already the expression of a theology.

science is intrinsically related to theology because one cannot identify the object of scientific inquiry—namely, nature—without simultaneously distinguishing it from that which is not nature—namely, God—and without giving tacit specification to the character of this "not.

Irreducibly metaphysical judgments as to the nature of being, form, time, space, matter, cause, truth, knowledge, explanation, wholes, parts, and the like are the starting point of science, not its conclusions.

Campbell could not disagree with Europeans' condescending view of American science as a backwater rich in money and manpower but poor in theoretical understanding.

The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself—not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs. Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent is a humdrum process that requires no new principles of logic or science. It comes simply from the hard work that biochemistry has done over the past forty years, combined with consideration of the way in which we reach conclusions of design every day.

The result of these cumulative efforts to investigate the cell—to investigate life at the molecular level—is a loud, clear, piercing cry of "design!" The result is so unambiguous and so significant that it must be ranked as one of the greatest achievements in the history of science. The discovery rivals those of Newton and Einstein, Lavoisier and Schrödinger, Pasteur, and Darwin.

If nutritionists can't easily determine how one dietary factor affects human health, evolutionary biologists can't tell what affected the survival of long dead animals.

When one starts to treat Darwinism as a hypothesis about the biochemical level of life rather than as an assumption, it takes about ten minutes to conclude it's radically inadequate.

will discuss molecular machines that allow cells to swim, and you will see what is required for them to do so.

Medical science has proven time and again that when the resources are provided, great progress in the treatment, cure, and prevention of disease can occur.

Science can investigate nature and inquire into the empirical world, but it cannot answer moral questions or disprove free will. That is because morality and freedom are not empirical concepts. We can't prove that they exist, but neither can we make sense of our moral lives without presupposing them.

Another way of putting this point is to say that morality is not empirical. It stands at a certain distance from the world. It passes judgment on the world. Science can't, for all its power and insight, reach moral questions, because it operates within the sensible realm.

Is it any wonder that no cure for cancer has ever been revealed?

It was called Buys Ballot's law. In the Northern Hemisphere, if you stand with your back to the prevailing wind, the area of low pressure will be on your left and the area of high pressure on your right, because wind travels counterclockwise inward toward a center of low pressure. The directions are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere

Today, however, we know that writing, at least science writing, is partly a skill. And skills can be improved. The pain can be reduced.

We enjoy doing science; why shouldn't we enjoy reading it?

The sheer quantity of brain power that hurled itself voluntarily and quixotically into the search for new baseball knowledge was either exhilarating or depressing, depending on how you felt about baseball. The same intellectual resources might have cured the common cold, or put a man on Pluto.

Weerlegging is geen ramp, maar de voorwaarde tot de vooruitgang van de wetenschap. Als we dingen met onweerlegbare zekerheid aan de weet konden komen, was er geen wetenschap.

A biofilm that appears to produce a cloaking effect.

Our scientific advances will be merely obscene unless they help the large part of our world's population emerge from miserable uncertainty and debilitating terror.