Quotes About Science

Science... denude(s) all religious beliefs... denigrating them as irrational forms of superstition or myth regardless of their intrinsic rationality or value.

Weber insists that the value of science is always to be questioned and not simply presupposed... He is... critical of the presupposition which underlies Strauss' position, namely that scientific reason is necessarily of value.

With the 'death' of God worldly values proliferate, separate out and are drawn into endless conflict with one another. This process leads to the formation of a world torn by an infinite number of value-conflicts, for 'rational' (scientific) knowledge, which, for Weber, is limited to questions of fact rather than value, is unable to resolve the crisis of values that it itself inaugurated.

Television viewers, I was assured, expect to be told the truth in "science programmes". When I protested that in several areas I was not yet at all sure what the truth was, worse still that I was not sure that it mattered what the truth was so long as one way of looking at things made better sense than another, it left everybody confused.

There will always be a war between light and darkness, between science and superstition, between education and ignorance. Ignorance is easier. It requires no study. Faith is the enemy of thought.

How long will it be before obstetricians transfer a dab of vaginal mucus into the mouth of the newborn to be on the safe side?

One gram of rich forest soil contains an estimated 100 million prokaryotes.

Richard Feynman said that the differences between true sciences and the pseudo-sciences – a category that includes the management-speak of the business schools – was that the former try to be honest, while the latter do not.

We must always emphasize research and development of science and mathematics, and I can think of no better way to achieve this than through our future in space.

One begins to wonder if all the most interesting problems in physics are now in biology.

At the level of their biochemistry, the barrier between bacteria and complex cells barely exists.

There's no greater insult in science than to say that an argument is 'not even wrong', that it is invulnerable to disproof.

Your 40 trillion cells contain at least a quadrillion mitochondria, with a combined convoluted surface area of about 14,000 square metres; about four football fields.

Occam's razor, the philosophical basis of all science: assume the simplest natural cause. That answer might turn out not to be correct, but we should not resort to more complex reasoning unless it is shown to be necessary.

Cambrian period, some 550 million years ago, soon after a big global rise in atmospheric oxygen.

In order not to think of the world which science describes, man gets drunk on technology.

Why deceive ourselves? Science has not answered a single important question.

Modern man denies himself every metaphysical dimension and considers himself a mere object of science. But he screams when they exterminate him as such.

Science deceives us in three ways: by turning its propositions into norms, by disclosing its results rather than its methods, by ignoring its epistemological limitations.

Each one of a science's successive orthodoxies appears to be the definitive truth to the disciple.

Nothing makes clearer the limits of science than the scientist's opinions about any topic that is not strictly related to his profession.

Die These der Einheit der Wissenschaft ist kein epistemologische Erfordernis. Nicht einmal ein intellektuelles Programm. Sondern angstvolle Verkrampfung angesichts des Geheimnisses.

Progress is the offspring of knowledge of nature. Faith in progress is the offspring of ignorance of history.

Whoever appeals to any science in order to justify his basic convictions inspires distrust of his honesty or his intelligence.