Quotes about science

No data is preferable to poor data.

You are lucky. Very few theoretical scientists ever see their mathematical equations turned into working hardware in their lifetime.

“It’s a failing of your culture,” Foster said, “that hypothesis becomes dogma almost overnight. You’re too close to your Neolithic, when the blind acceptance of tribal lore had survival value. Having learned to evoke the fire god from sticks, by rote, you tend to extend the principal to all ‘established facts.’”

How did particle physics get itself into its current state where some of its most prominent practitioners question whether their colleagues have given up on science?

The standard model is just too good. It's too hard to find an experimental result that disagrees with it, and too hard to come up with theoretical advances that will address some of the things it leaves unexplained.

There are, of course, innumerable abuses, countless possible misinterpretations, and depressingly many biased studies, but, done right, the process works; it yields knowledge.

Too often, this concern for the big picture is simply obscurantist and is put forward by people who prefer vagueness and mystery to (partial) answers. Vagueness is at times necessary and mystery is never in short supply, but I don’t think they’re anything to worship. Genuine science and mathematical precision are more intriguing than are the “facts” published in supermarket tabloids or a romantic innumeracy which fosters credulity, stunts skepticism, and dulls one to real imponderables.

Science has only existed for a few hundred years, and its most spectacular achievements have occurred within the last century. Viewed from a historical perspective, the modern era of rapid scientific and technological progress appears to be not a permanent feature of reality, but an abberation, a fluke, a product of a singular convergence of social, intellectual, and political factors.

Look, if I could guarantee what the results were going to be, I wouldn’t need a research program!

“Hell, how do you think the human race ever learned anything, except by trial and error?”

“But it all takes such a long, long time,” said Len.”

“Everything takes a long time. Birthing takes nine months, and dying takes you all the rest of your life, and what are you complaining about, anyway?”

“I thought they knew,” Len said. “I thought they were sure of it.”

“Research isn’t done that way.”

“But how can they spend all that time, and maybe that much more again, if they know it might be all for nothing?”

“Because how would they know if they didn’t try? And because there isn’t any other way to do it.”

[W]illingness to admit ignorance... made modern science more dynamic, supple and inquisitive than... previous tradition[s].