Science Scientists Quotes

But you can't be a scientist if you're uncomfortable with ignorance, because scientists live at the boundary between what is known and unknown in the cosmos. This is very different from the way journalists portray us. So many articles begin, "Scientists now have to go back to the drawing board." It's as though we're sitting in our offices, feet up on our desks - masters of the universe - and suddenly say, "Oops, somebody discovered something!"
No. We're always at the drawing board. If you're not at the drawing board, you're not making discoveries. You're not a scientist; you're something else. The public, on the other hand, seems to demand conclusive explanations as they leap without hesitation from statements of abject ignorance to statements of absolute certainty. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Clarke's First Law - Corollary: When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion - the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right. ~ Isaac Asimov

Scientists, for their part, need to be far more engaged with current public debates. They "should not be afraid of making their voice heard when the debate wanders into their field of expertise, be it medicine or history. Silence isn't neuatrality; it is supporting the status quo. Of course, it is extremely important to go on doing academic research and to publish the results in scientific journals that only a few experts read. But it is equally important to communicate the latest scientific theories to the general public through popular-science books, and even through the skilful use of art and fiction. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

{Comment to Delambre on chemist Antoine Lavoisier's execution during the French Revolution}

Only a moment to cut off that head and a hundred years may not give us another like it. ~ Joseph-Louis Lagrange

For scientists, reality is not optional. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

The sciences have two extremities which meet. The first is the ignorance in which men find themselves at birth. The second is that attained by great souls. They have surveyed whatever man can know, find that they know all, meet in that same ignorance whence they started. It is a clever ignorance, which knows itself. Those among them who, having emerged from the first ignorance, have been unable to achieve the other & have some smattering of this self-satisfied knowledge, pose as experts. The latter do not disturb people, are no more mistaken in their judgments on everything than others. The masses, the skilled, make up the retinue of a nation. The others, who respect it, are equally respected by it. ~ Comte De Lautreamont

Science was many things, Nadia thought, including a weapon with which to hit other scientists. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

Eww, he said. I almost said the same thing, but unlike my brother, I had been annealed in the furnace of Scientific Thought. Scientists do not say such things aloud (although we may think them from time to time). ~ Jacqueline Kelly

In preparing the present volume, it has been the aim of the author to do full justice to the ample material at his command, and, where possible, to make the illustrations tell the main story to anatomists. The text of such a memoir may soon lose its interest, and belong to the past, but good figures are of permanent value. [Justifying elaborate illustrations in his monographs.] ~ Othniel Charles Marsh

I can't imagine the scientists wanting me to walk into the lab and start fiddling around with some big bowl of electrons they had out. ~ Jim Benton

Science is what scientists do, not what nonscientists think they do or ought to be doing.
Wetenschap is wat wetenschappers doen.
[Flanagan's motto as magazine editor for selecting content to put in Scientific American.] ~ Dennis Flanagan

I believe in a world in which science is the key for supporting the
development of a happy future for humanity. So, I advocate for such a
situation in which scientists would speak louder. If science is silent, there is no way to solve high priority problems at a global level, such as: the gap between developed and undeveloped countries, poverty, limited energy resources, limited food and even drinking water (especially related to the population growth phenomenon), global warming and rapid climate
changes, etc. ~ Eraldo Banovac

The Great God Science. It has failed us, because it was never meant to be a god, but only a few true scientists understand that. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

The void is 'not-being,' and no part of 'what is' is a 'not-being,'; for what 'is' in the strict sense of the term is an absolute plenum. This plenum, however, is not 'one': on the contrary, it is a 'many' infinite in number and invisible owing to the minuteness of their bulk. ~ Aristotle.

In these and other respects a discussion of puzzles and rules illuminates the nature of normal scientific practice. Yet, in another way, that illumination may be significantly misleading. Though there obviously are rules to which all the practitioners of a scientific specialty adhere at a given time, those rules may not by themselves specify all that the practice of those specialists has in common. ~ Thomas S. Kuhn

Chemistry has the same quickening and suggestive influence upon the algebraist as a visit to the Royal Academy, or the old masters may be supposed to have on a Browning or a Tennyson. Indeed it seems to me that an exact homology exists between painting and poetry on the one hand and modem chemistry and modem algebra on the other. In poetry and algebra we have the pure idea elaborated and expressed through the vehicle of language, in painting and chemistry the idea enveloped in matter, depending in part on manual processes and the resources of art for its due manifestation. ~ James Joseph Sylvester

Scientists still do not appear to understand sufficiently that all earth sciences must contribute evidence toward unveiling the state of our planet in earlier times, and that the truth of the matter can only be reached by combing all this evidence ... It is only by combing the information furnished by all the earth sciences that we can hope to determine 'truth' here, that is to say, to find the picture that sets out all the known facts in the best arrangement and that therefore has the highest degree of probability. Further, we have to be prepared always for the possibility that each new discovery, no matter what science furnishes it, may modify the conclusions we draw. ~ Alfred Wegener

[About the great synthesis of atomic physics in the 1920s]
It was a heroic time. It was not the doing of any one man; it involved the collaboration of scores of scientists from many different lands. But from the first to last the deeply creative, subtle and critical spirit of Niels Bohr guided, restrained, deepened and finally transmuted the enterprise. ~ J. Robert Oppenheimer

Facts and values are entangled in science. It's not because scientists are biased, not because they are partial or influenced by other kinds of interests, but because of a commitment to reason, consistency, coherence, plausibility and replicability. These are value commitments. ~ Alva Noe

When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems. This is what did Shannon in. After information theory, what do you do for an encore? The great scientists often make this error. They fail to continue to plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow. They try to get the big thing right off. And that isn't the way things go. So that is another reason why you find that when you get early recognition it seems to sterilize you. ~ Richard Hamming

Look, I don't know what you are, but you're more than a geologist, if you are one at all. I've met lots of geologists on different projects like this, and they're all tiny sunburned men with fetishes for geodes. They wear floppy hats and carry baggies for soil samples around with them ... And geologists don't make rocks disappear like you did the other night. They keep them and build little shrines to them. ~ Kevin Hearne

That is why they have poets - to classify all the degrees of love. It is for scientists to classify the maladies arising from the want of it. ~ Sarah Ruhl

The fact that scientists do not consciously practice a formal methodology is very poor evidence that no such methodology exists. It could be said - has been said - that there is a distinctive methodology of science which scientists practice unwittingly, like the chap in Molière who found that all his life, unknowingly, he had been speaking prose. ~ Peter Medawar

Where were answers to the truly deep questions? Religion promised those, though always in vague terms, while retreating from one line in the sand to the next. Don't look past this boundary, they told Galileo, then Hutton, Darwin, Von Neumann, and Crick, always retreating with great dignity before the latest scientific advance, then drawing the next holy perimeter at the shadowy rim of knowledge. ~ David Brin

Read Euler, read Euler, he is the master of us all. ~ Pierre-Simon Laplace

On Titan the molecules that have been raining down like manna from heaven for the last 4 billion years might still be there largely unaltered deep-frozen awaiting the chemists from Earth ~ Carl Sagan

It's peculiar to me,' she said, 'that everybody pays so much attention to living and so little to dying. Why are these high-powered scientists always screwing around trying to prolong life instead of finding pleasant ways to end it? There must be a hell of a lot of people in the world like me--who want to die but haven't got the guts. ~ Horace McCoy

Though neglectful of their responsibility to protect science, scientists are increasingly aware of their responsibility to society. ~ John Polanyi

But if the two countries or governments are at war, the men of science are not. That would, indeed be a civil war of the worst description: we should rather, through the instrumentality of the men of science soften the asperities of national hostility.

{Davy's remarks to Thomas Poole on accepting Napoleon's prize for the best experiment on Galvanism.} ~ Humphry Davy

Research today has become more about seeing if something can be done versus judging if it should. It's knowledge for the sake of knowledge, regardless of the impact on the world. ~ James Rollins

The Creator has – I say it in all reverence - drawn a myriad red herrings across the track, but the true scientist refuses to be baffled by superficial appearances in detecting the secrets of Nature. The vulgar herd catches at the gross apparent fact, but the man of insight knows what lies on the surfaces does lie. ~ Israel Zangwill

Mathematics is the study of analogies between analogies. All science is. Scientists want to show that things that don't look alike are really the same. That is one of their innermost Freudian motivations. In fact, that is what we mean by understanding. ~ Gian-Carlo Rota

The scientists must be crazy themselves if they think they can explain this crazy world. ~ Marty Rubin

I don't think she can see her husband very often, for he teaches the university students during the day, and works at the telescope at night. I wonder if she hopes for cloudy nights and then feels guilty. ~ Pippa Goldschmidt

Science is what scientists do. ~ Dennis Flanagan

There are always more questions. Science as a process is never complete. It is not a foot race, with a finish line ... People will always be waiting at a particular finish line: journalists with their cameras, impatient crowds eager to call the race, astounded to see the scientists approach, pass the mark, and keep running. It's a common misunderstanding, he said. They conclude there was no race. As long as we won't commit to knowing everything, the presumption is we know nothing. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

I am sure my fellow-scientists will agree with me if I say that whatever we were able to achieve in our later years had its origin in the experiences of our youth and in the hopes and wishes which were formed before and during our time as students. ~ Felix Bloch

Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer-drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science. ~ Yann Martel

It must be admitted that scientists today take little interest in philosophy of science.... It is not an indication that philosophical issues are no longer relevant. Rather, it is a consequence of the increasingly specialized nature of science, and of the polarization between the sciences and humanities that characterizes the modern education system. ~ Samir Okasha

I happen to love science ... Scientists are all slightly mad. There is truth in the stereotype of the mad scientist. They are mad with curiosity. ~ Richard Preston

We tend to hear much more about the splendors returned than the ships that brought them or the shipwrights. It has always been that way. Even those history books enamored of the voyages of Christopher Columbus do not tell much about the builders of the Nina the Pinta and the Santa Maria or about the principle of the caravel. These spacecraft their designers builders navigators and controllers are examples of what science and engineering set free for well-defined peaceful purposes can accomplish. Those scientists and engineers should be role models for an America seeking excellence and international competitiveness. They should be on our stamps. ~ Carl Sagan

In the first place, I think there's going to be more and more merging of art and science. Scientists are already studying the creative process, and I think the whole line between art and science will break down and that scientists, I hope, will become more creative and writers more scientific. And I see no reason why the artistic world can't absolutely merge with Madison Avenue. Pop art is a move in that direction. Why can't we have advertisements with beautiful words and beautiful images? Already some of the very beautiful color photography appears in whiskey ads, I notice. Science will also discover for us how association blocks actually form. ~ William S. Burroughs

Perhaps a physicist would know at once why this whole idea was absurd. But then, perhaps a physicist would be so locked into the consensus of his scientific community that it would be harder for him to accept an idea that transformed the meaning of everything he knew. Even if it were true. ~ Orson Scott Card

A suggestion of a trapdoor waiting under every word. ~ Emily St. John Mandel

All things change, and we change with them. ~ London Shah

I also maintain that clear knowledge of natural science must be acquired, in the first instance, through mastery of medicine alone. ~ Hippocrates

Why do you love me?" His heart pounded faster. "Why?"
Simple answer: "Because without you, I'm not me. ~ Lynn Vroman

Management is a far more homely business than its would be scientists suggest, more closely allied to cookery than any other human activity. Like cooking, it rests on a degree of organisation and on adequate resources. But just as no two chefs run their kitchens the same way, so no two managements are the same. ~ Robert Heller

Chemistry is necessarily an experimental science: its conclusions are drawn from data, and its principles supported by evidence from facts. ~ Michael Faraday

The Hubble Law is one of the great discoveries in science; it is one of the main supports of the scientific story of Genesis. ~ Robert Jastrow

Wherever you turn your eye - except in science - an Oxford man is at the top of the tree. ~ Cecil Rhodes

We know only a single science, the science of history. History can be contemplated from two sides, it can be divided into the history of nature and the history of mankind. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned. ~ Karl Marx

Architecture is art. I don't think you should say that too much, but it is art. I mean, architecture is many, many things. Architecture is science, is technology, is geography, is typography, is anthropology, is sociology, is art, is history. You know all this comes together. Architecture is a kind of bouillabaisse, an incredible bouillabaisse. And, by the way, architecture is also a very polluted art in the sense that it's polluted by life, and by the complexity of things. ~ Renzo Piano

Qualia of God refers to the private subjective experience or conception of God in people. ~ Abhijit Naskar

This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. ~ Jacob Bronowski

In an echo of earlier times, the climate change prophets have in recent years tried to silence counter views and suppress dissent. August members of the Royal Society, a body once noted for its cultivation of debate in science, are now leaders of the 'science is settled' camp: the only debate they consider to be legitimate is about choice among the different forms of the centralized action they believe is required to deal with the problems they foresee. ~ Colin Robinson

A part of our nature rebels against this truth and against that other part which would accept it. A second truth of equal weight contradicts the first, proclaiming through art, religion, philosophy, science and even war that human life, in some way not easily definable, is significant and unique and supreme beyond all the limits of reason and nature. And this second truth we can deny only at the cost of denying our humanity. ~ Edward Abbey

Oh these mathematicians make me tired! When you ask them to work out a sum they take a piece of paper, cover it with rows of A's, B's, and X's and Y's ... scatter a mess of flyspecks over them, and then give you an answer that's all wrong! ~ Thomas A. Edison

Lagrange, in one of the later years of his life, imagined that he had overcome the difficulty (of the parallel axiom). He went so far as to write a paper, which he took with him to the Institute, and began to read it. But in the first paragraph something struck him that he had not observed: he muttered: 'Il faut que j'y songe encore', and put the paper in his pocket.' [I must think about it again]. ~ Augustus De Morgan

The mathematical giant [Gauss], who from his lofty heights embraces in one view the stars and the abysses ... ~ Farkas Bolyai

IF YOU DON'T FEED YOUR MIND WITH SUCCESS. IT WILL ROT WITH MEDIOCRITY! ~ BLONDEL SEUMO

We may climb into the thin and cold realm of pure geometry and lifeless science, or sink into that of sensation. Between these extremes is the equator of life, of thought, or spirit, or poetry,
a narrow belt. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Father, we are uniquely capable of morality. We must be moral, because we can be moral.

He stood very still as the words settled like silt to the floor of his veins.

We can snatch from the air the abstractness of numbers, adding and subtracting and making logic from magic, and because we can, we do, and we must. We can build pyramids and sky-piercing towers, so we must. We can wrestle language from our grunting, so we must. We can map our physical mysteries with machines of our own making. We can classify the species of the earth, name every stone and streamlet. We can run a hundred miles, and we can walk on the face of the moon, so we must - and then we must go farther.

We can, from the chaos of existence, extract meanings, which do not exist. We can make ourselves philosophers and scientists and priests. We can construct our unnatural civilizations - we can, and therefore we must. To starve our genes is to honor our genes. With fear and loathing we can stand on the necks of our parents and refuse them. We can evolve from simple to complex. We can choose survival of the species over survival of the self. We can say no to nature and form a conspiracy of doves.

We are uniquely capable of morality, therefore we must be moral. That is our nature. ~ C.E. Morgan

constitute a horror story wherein the villains of the piece stole power from a stable governance system in order to cast the population of the world into an ongoing lab experiment with no plan or boundary. A dismal science. ~ Warren Ellis

If people are constantly falling off a cliff, you could place ambulances under the cliff or build a fence on the top of the cliff. We are placing all too many ambulances under the cliff. ~ Denis Parsons Burkitt

Religion enjoys astonishing privileges in our societies, privileges denied to almost any other special interest group one can think of-and certainly denied to individuals ~ Richard Dawkins

The true subject of science fiction is death, not life. It will all end. The totality of it. ~ Gary Shteyngart

For Nature is accustomed to rehearse with certain large, perhaps baser, and all classes of wild (animals), and to place in the imperfect the rudiments of the perfect animals. ~ Marcello Malpighi

I realize that, to many readers, Hard Fantasy may seem to be a contradiction in terms. Fantasy, according to most generally recognized definitions, differs from both 'real world' fiction and 'science fiction' in that magic or magical creatures are active elements. ~ Jane Lindskold

Fish and visitors stink after three days. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. ~ Max Planck

Every honest researcher I know admits he's just a professional amateur. He's doing whatever he's doing for the first time. That makes him an amateur. He has sense enough to know that he's going to have a lot of trouble, so that makes him a professional. ~ Charles Kettering

JOH! Thank God I found you."
"I have 9022 gods listed in my database. Must I thank all of them? ~ Maureen A. Miller

Alchemy posed as a sacred science, whereas chemistry came into its own when substances had shed their sacred attributes. ~ Mircea Eliade

Light and Darkness. One cannot exist without the other. There is no true Master, without the power of balance. ~ Luis Marques

Scientific medicine is one of the greatest triumphs of humankind. ~ Raymond Tallis

Science is concerned with what is possible while engineering is concerned with choosing, from among the many possible ways, one that meets a number of often poorly stated economic and practical objectives. ~ Richard Hamming

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits? ~ Carl Sagan

This virtual world is sparsely populated but you may find some of my soldiers that were able to get in to the world who may prove to be a big help in your quest. That is if they haven't been captured by the gloobas or turn into traitors themselves. - Elder God "The Thousand Years War ~ Angel Ramon Medina

Life is complex. It has real and imaginary parts. ~ Anonymous

researchers like Dr. Eva Sapi have shown Lyme is like some other spirochetes - it has biofilms. These are very tough biofilms to defeat unless caught in the "acute stage." A tough, "mature biofilm" allows organisms to "laugh at" many antibiotics. Some medical professionals interested in Lyme often ignore the immune suppressing Bartonella bacterium, which is more common than Lyme. Ignoring coinfections may increase the risk of fatality with Babesia and possibly FL1953. These healers also may not realize that the highly genetically complex Lyme spirochete appears to have a troublesome biofilm. Performing a simple direct test at laboratory companies whose testing kits have reduced sensitivity will probably result in more negatives for tick-borne diseases. The ultimate result is anti-science and anti-truth. Searching for tick infections with one test is like writing in "Lincoln" at the next presidential election. ~ James L. Schaller

The virtues of science are skepticism and independence of thought. ~ Walter Gilbert

The plague of scientific minds is the inability to stop oneself from digging into things you know you shouldn't touch. Some answers ought to be left alone and never discovered by mortals. ~ S.R. Ford

He slept that night the sleep of a successfully stubborn man. ~ Isaac Asimov

Attention makes the genius; all learning, fancy, science and skills depend upon it. Newton traced his discoveries to it. It builds bridges, opens new worlds, heals diseases, carries on the business of the world. Without it taste is useless, and the beauties of literature unobserved. ~ Robert Aris Willmott