Quotes About Inquiry

Science is generated by and devoted to free inquiry: the idea that any hypothesis, no matter how strange, deserves to be considered on its merits. The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no place in the endeavor of science. We do not know in advance who will discover fundamental new insights.

In exchange for freedom of inquiry, scientists are obliged to explain their work.

Even if the aliens are short, dour, and sexually obsessed—if they're here, I want to know about them.

Censoring] knowledge, telling people what they must think and what ideas are impermissible, which lines of evidence may not be pursued, is the aperture to thought police, foolish and incompetent decision-making, and long-term decline.

Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking.

Science is an ongoing process. It never ends. There is no single ultimate truth to be achieved, after which all the scientists can retire.

There is no single ultimate truth to be achieved, after which all the scientists can retire. And because this is so, the world is far more interesting, both

Science is an ongoing process. It never ends. There is no single ultimate truth to be achieved, after which all the scientists can retire. And because this is so, the world is far more interesting, both for the scientists and for the millions of people in every nation who, while not professional scientists, are deeply interested in the methods and findings of science.

Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is.

Science gropes and staggers toward improved understanding.

But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method.

It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little about it.

Skepticism does not sell well.

Let's see if I got this right, she would say to herself. I've taken an inert gas that's in the air, made it into a liquid, put some impurities in a ruby, attached a magnet, and detected the fires of creation.

We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.

Hay preguntas ingenuas, preguntas tediosas, preguntas malformuladas, preguntas planteadas con una inadecuada autocrítica. Pero toda pregunta es un clamor por entender el mundo. No hay preguntas estúpidas.

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge

Skepticism must be a component of the explorer's toolkit, or we will lose our way. There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any.

I don't think science is hard to teach because humans aren't ready for it, or because it arose only through a fluke, or because, by and large, we don't have the brainpower to grapple with it. Instead, the enormous zest for science that I see in first-graders and the lesson from the remnant hunter-gatherers both speak eloquently: a proclivity for science is embedded deeply within us, in all times, places and cultures. It has been the means for our survival. It is our birthright.

the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes—an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new.

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on the seashore, and diverting myself, in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

what is wanted is not the will to believe, but the desire to find out, which is the exact opposite.

it does not become us to be so curious and inquisitive in these Things which the Supreme Creator seems to have kept for his own Knowledge: For since he has not been pleased to make any farther Discovery or Revelation of them, it seems little better than presumption to make any inquiry into that which he has thought fit to hide. But these Gentlemen must be told

There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters to sensitive or delicate to be probed, no sacred truths. That openness to new ideas, combined with the most rigorous, skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, sifts the wheat from the chaff. It makes no difference how smart, august, or beloved you are. You must prove your case in the face of determined, expert criticism. Diversity and debate are valued. Opinions are encouraged to contend–substantively and in depth.