Scientific Ideas Quotes

Three profoundly destabilizing scientific ideas ricochet through the twentieth century, trisecting it into three unequal parts: the atom, the byte, the gene. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee

Modern textbooks on science give no sense that scientific ideas come out of the minds of human beings. ~ Jerome S. Bernstein

New scientific ideas never spring from a communal body, however organized, but rather from the head of an individually inspired researcher who struggles with his problems in lonely thought and unites all his thought on one single point which is his whole world for the moment. ~ Max Planck

It is rather ironical that in the sixteenth century some people resisted advances in science because they seemed to threaten belief in God; whereas in the twentieth century scientific ideas of a beginning have been resisted because they threatened to increase the plausibility of belief in God. ~ John C. Lennox

As a boy, I was deeply interested in scientific ideas, electrical and mechanical, and I read almost everything I could find on the subject. I was attracted more by the hardware and construction aspects than by the scientific issues. ~ Carlo Rubbia

Perhaps the best argument ... that the Big Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheist physicists. At times this has led to scientific ideas ... being advanced with a tenacity which so exceeds their intrinsic worth that one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his or her theory. ~ Christopher Isham

In Europe I have been accused of taking my scientific ideas from the Church. In America I have been called a heretic, because I will not let my church-going friends pat me on the head. ~ Louis Agassiz

Now against the specialist, against the man who studies only art or electricity, or the violin, or the thumbscrew or what not, there is only one really important argument, and that, for some reason or other, is never offered. People say that specialists are inhuman; but that is unjust. People say an expert is not a man; but that is unkind and untrue. The real difficulty about the specialist or expert is much more singular and fascinating. The trouble with the expert is never that he is not a man; it is always that wherever he is not an expert he is too much of an ordinary man. Wherever he is not exceptionally learned he is quite casually ignorant. This is the great fallacy in the case of what is called the impartiality of men of science. If scientific men had no idea beyond their scientific work it might be all very well - that is to say, all very well for everybody except them. But the truth is that, beyond their scientific ideas, they have not the absence of ideas but the presence of the most vulgar and sentimental ideas that happen to be common to their social clique. If a biologist had no views on art and morals it might be all very well. The truth is that the biologist has all the wrong views of art and morals that happen to be going about in the smart set of his time. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Henry's universe was modeled on the highball. It was a mixture in which half a pint of the fizziest philosophical and scientific ideas all but drowned a small jigger of immediate experience, most of it strictly sexual. Broken reeds are seldom good mixers. They're far too busy with their ideas, their sensuality and their psychosomatic complaints to be able to take an interest in other people - even their own wives and children. They live in a state of the most profound voluntary ignorance, not knowing anything about anybody, but abounding in preconceived opinions about everything. ~ Aldous Huxley

I tell personal stories associated with aspects of the theory, and I hope they are interesting and compelling. I don't feel you're going to change a grownup's mind in one reading. People have to be exposed to scientific ideas over and over again for years. It's also not a textbook. ~ Bill Nye

Ideas being only accessible to crowds after having assumed a very simple shape must often undergo the most thoroughgoing transformations to become popular. It is especially when we are dealing with somewhat lofty philosophical or scientific ideas that we see how far-reaching are the modifications they require in order to lower them to the level of the intelligence of crowds. [ ... .] However great or true an idea may have been to begin with, it is deprived of almost all that which constituted its elevation and its greatness. ~ Gustave Le Bon

This indeed is the most conspicuous feature of the modern period: need for ceaseless agitation, for unending change, and for ever-increasing speed, matching the speed with which events themselves succeed one another. It is dispersion in multiplicity, and in a multiplicity that is no longer unified by consciousness of any higher principle; in daily life, as in scientific ideas, it is analysis driven to an extreme, endless subdivision, a veritable disintegration of human activity in all the orders in which this can still be exercised; hence the inaptitude for synthesis and the incapacity for any sort of concentration that is so striking in the eyes of Easterners. These are the natural and inevitable results of an ever more pronounced materialization, for matter is essentially multiplicity and division, and this-be it said in passing-is why all that proceeds from matter can beget only strife and all manner of conflicts between peoples as between individuals. The deeper one sinks into matter, the more the elements of division and opposition gain force and scope; and, contrariwise, the more one rises toward pure spirituality, the nearer one approaches that unity which can only be fully realized by consciousness of universal principles. ~ Rene Guenon

Then I came in twice a week - for my own enjoyment as well as to be a guide. And then we started to apply some of the splinters of the ideas back into the piece. ~ Siobhan Davies

Deep scientific psychoanalysis reveals that excessive beliefs and dependence on religion is a superstition and fear induced psychiatric disease. ~ Debasish Mridha

If you are centered in peace and think thoughts that are kind and loving, you will attract the same kind of ideas and feelings back to you. Remember, thoughts are like very powerful magnets! ~ James Van Praagh

In
the scientific community, the adjective 'theological' is some-
times used pejoratively to refer to a vague or ill-formulated
belief. I believe this usage to be very far from the truth. It sad-
dens me that some of my colleagues remain unaware of the
truth-seeking intent and rational scrupulosity that character-
ise theological discourse at its best. ~ John Polkinghorne

There is no reasoning, no process of inference or comparison; there is no thinking about things, no putting two and two together; there are no ideas - the animal does not think of the box or of the food or of the act he is to perform. ~ Edward Thorndike

Physical geography and geology are inseparable scientific twins. ~ Roderick Murchison

Today's review covers the following ideas: 1. (65) 'My only function is the one that God gives to me.' The only function that I have is the one of forgiving that God gives to me. Recognizing this releases me from all conflict, because I have only one goal. With only one purpose, I always know what to do, what to say, and what to think. All doubt disappears as I acknowledge that my only function is the one that God gives to me. 2. Specific applications might take this form: 'The personal mind's perception of this does not change my function.' 'This does not give me a function that replaces the one that God gives to me.' 'I will not use this to justify a function that God does not give to me.' 3. (66) 'My Happiness and my function are One.' All that comes from God is One. What comes from Oneness, I must receive as One. Fulfilling my function is my ~ Elizabeth A. Cronkhite

I have noticed that most people don't use more than a pea size equivalent of their brain. They can't process more than one idea each time. If I say that my grandparents were from Switzerland and then I was born somewhere else, they will forget the somewhere else and focus on Switzerland; If I say that my name originates in the South of France before saying my nationality, it becomes irrelevant as well. And I'm surprised at how many people get offended when I tell them I can easily brainwash them with new ideas and convince them that I'm right. It's not my fault but theirs, for not knowing how to think. They shouldn't blame the overthinker but the underthinker. And yet, I hear so many times this explanation for any kind of life problem: "You think too much". Everything serves as an excuse to be stupid in this world. And then the majority wonders why getting a job is so difficult for them. It's not for overthinkers. I used to be called for job interviews because I was a rule breaker; I would hide my age and be called because the interviewer wanted to ask me how old I am; or paint the letters of my CV in green and be called because it was the first to be noticed among thousands in black and white. The only problem about overthinking is that you will eventually overcome the norm. That's why I don't need a job anymore; I have outthought the majority. ~ Robin Sacredfire

Lamm's system - dubbed the Baron Lamm Technique - worked well. From 1919 to 1930 it brought Lamm hundreds of thousands of dollars from banks around the country; after his death it was taught to John Dillinger, among others.* Lamm's system, still employed today succeeded not only because of its conceptual strength but also because Lamm was able to communicate his ideas and translate them into the seamless performance of an immensely difficult task. He was an innovator who taught with discipline and exactitude. He inspired through information. In short, Baron Lamm was a master coach. ~ Daniel Coyle

To see Reality is as simple as to see one's face in a mirror. Only, the mirror must be clear and true. A quiet mind, undistorted by desires and fears, free from ideas and opinions, clear on all the levels, is needed to reflect the Reality. Be clear and quiet; alert and detached, all else will happen by itself. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Reform is not for the short-winded. I'm committed to making sure the Senate is more than just a graveyard for good ideas. ~ Mark Udall

Despite Soviet 'defeat' in 1991, the ideas associated with Communism remain shockingly reputable throughout what we still know as the Free World. ~ Diana West

In our day there are no longer any ideas, or they are scarcer than hens' teeth. ~ Louis Aragon

The key is to put your outrage in a place where you can get it when you need to, but not have it bubble up so much, especially when you're asked to explain new ideas or explain what you observed two people who share none of your experiences. ~ Ron Suskind

Traditional market researchers are cold and calculating and scientific. ~ Frank Luntz

A man-made thing that produces pleasure (and criticism) by somehow taping into the order of the universe is beautiful. Making beautiful things makes our lives worthwhile. My teacher, and one of the founders of the Pratt industrial design program, Rowena Reed Kostellow, said, "Pure, unadulterated beauty should be the goal of civilization." From a pragmatic point of view, for something to be beautiful, it has to work. In order to make this idea clearer I have combined the ideas of beauty and function into one word: Beautility. ~ Tucker Viemeister

I always have this imagination, something I want to use. I don't understand the idea of leisure time. ~ Cher Wang

Ideas are the roots of creation. ~ Ernest Dimnet

Where did secular liberalism go wrong?

It has been undone by its own ideas. The first idea is that matters of conscience - religion, ethics, and values - are private matters. The privatizing of conscience started with two important principles: religion should be separated from the state and people should not be forced to believe one way or the other. But it went further to say that belief has no place in the public sphere. Conscience belongs in homes and houses of worship, not in the marketplace. By making conscience private, secular liberals had hoped to prevent believers from introducing sectarian beliefs into politics. But of course they couldn't, since freedom of belief means believers are free to speak their minds in public.

Instead, secularism imposed a gag order on itself. Because "private" is equated with "personal" and "subjective," questions of conscience were placed out of bounds of serious critical evaluation.

…

… The mistake lies in thinking that because conscience is free from coercion, it must be free from criticism, reason, truth, or independent, objective standards of right and wrong. The indispensable principle of freedom of belief has mutated into an unthinking assumption that matters of belief are immune to critical public inquiry and shared evaluative norms. ~ Austin Dacey

It's hard for me to know. I'll think, 'I really brought off my ideas, it's great,' and no one sparks to it ~ Woody Allen

Slowly, ideas lead to ideology, lead to policies that lead to actions. ~ Nandan Nilekani

The idea of intimately entwining with customers [to get ideas] is an idea whose time has come. ~ Tom Peters

In my opinion, the greatest misconception about the market is the idea that if you buy and hold stocks for long periods of time, you'll always make money. Let me give you some specific examples. Anyone who bought the stock market at any time between the 1896 low and the 1932 low would have lost money. In other words, there's a 36 year period in which a buy-and-hold strategy would have lost money. As a more modern example, anyone who bought the market at any time between the 1962 low and the 1974 low would have lost money. ~ Victor Sperandeo

But, it's much easier to do that than produce the movies from scratch. It excites the same thing in me, whether we build it from the ground up, or whether we come on when the movie is done or almost done. The idea of supporting the underdog and getting a smaller movie out there in a big way is equally exciting. ~ Jason Blum

Henry Miller, Genet, Sade, Bataille are really important writers for me and I love them, but I feel often they don't love me, you know? I feel I always have to wrap my head around the way the girl is treated in the works, and the way the woman writer has been treated within their philosophies. I think of Kathy Acker's Blood and Guts in High School, where Janey Smith is in an S&M relationship with Jean Genet, who she follows around the deserts of Algeria, and he's horrible to her, and that's what I think of when I think of my relationship to those writers. I think you have to read the text, obviously, despite that.

You seem to be subverting Sade and Bataille's ideas of the whore, and Henry Miller – all of his cunt portraits, all of his horrors that he writes about – you're writing about it from an interiority and a subjectivity that we don't typically get with the 'whore' or the 'slut' or the sexual girl. ~ Kate Zambreno

We must have increasing participation within the scientific community and reasonable scientific discussion, putting aside the stigma that UFOs are voodoo science before any real advances can be made in understanding the real nature of the UFO phenomenon. ~ Larry Holcombe

Imagine - four years you could have spent travelling around Europe meeting people, or going to the Far East of Africa or India, meeting people, exchanging ideas, reading all you wanted to anyway, and instead I wasted it at Roosevelt. ~ Shel Silverstein

When you find yourself a mom, you will be by no means seriously by itself with your ideas. A mother usually should think twice, once for herself and once for her boy or girl. ~ Sophia Loren

For students to understand what the future of journalism is going to be, they're going to have to invent it. It's a big idea. We don't know what journalism is going to look like in the next three years, let alone the next 10 years. ~ Steve Blank

If Obama came by his liberalism in the faculty lounge, then sure, he can see it hasn't worked, and he can modify it. But if Obama got his formative ideas when he was very young, and if they are the result of his traumatic relationship with his father, then they are built into his psyche. ~ Dinesh D'Souza

Writing gives me the opportunity to explore ideas, play with language, solve problems, use my imagination, and draw on my own childhood. ~ Jack Prelutsky

Some people harbor the idea or belief that all teachers should teach for free. Obviously these people have never been teachers, particularly in the twentieth century. Teaching meditation is a very expensive hobby. ~ Frederick Lenz

The computer is simply an instrument whose music is ideas. ~ Alan Kay

They have eliminated rigidity, both physical and psychological, in order to support more fluid processes whereby temporary teams are created to deal with specific and ever-changing needs. They have simplified roles into minimal categories; they have knocked down walls and created workplaces where people, ideas, and information circulate freely. ~ Margaret J. Wheatley