Quote2Note: Stephen Hawking on #ignorance #knowledge #illusion of knowledge

Quote2Note: #Copernicus (via Reed) on the danger of being right when the rest of the world is wrong - or, the “intertia of #tradition”

Copernicus . . . did not publish his book [on the nature of the solar system] until he was on his deathbed. He knew how dangerous it is to be right when the rest of the world is wrong.

Thomas Brackett Reed, in a speech at Waterville, Maine, July 30, 1885

Quote2note: Merton on #faith #institutions #science and healthy #skepticism

Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue. 

    • Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (1962)

Quote2note: On the scientific mind - right questions vs right answers

The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions. 

        • Claude Levi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked (1964)

Quote2note: The difference between #knowledge and #wisdom

 “Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification"

-Harold Fabing and Ray Marr

Quote2note: On science and facts

 

Science is built up of facts, as a house is built of stones, but an accumulation of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.

• Henri Poincari, Science and Hypothesis (1905) 

Quote2note: On university (school) and business #committees :)

 A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.

• Sir Barnett Cocks, in New Scientist, 1973

Quote2note: E. L. Thorndike on importance of psychological #measurement

 

Whatever exists at all exists in some amount.  To know it thoroughly involves knowing its quantity as well as its quality

- E. L. Thorndike

Quote2note: Niels Bohr on experts and mistakes

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field.

Niels Bohr, recalled on his death, November 18, 1962

#quote2note: #Galton on #measurement

Whenever you can, count.     

              — Sir Francis Galton

#quote2note: Louis Agassiz on stages of #scientific truth

 

"Every great scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Next they say it had been discovered before. Lastly they say they always believed it."

- Louis Agassiz

#quote2note: Voltaire on #individualdifferences

 

"Minds differ still more than faces"
-Voltaire

#quote2note: Marie Curie on getting s___t done :)

 “One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done"

- Marie Curie