Frederick Seitz Quotes
It is almost instinctive in science to accept contrary views, because disagreeing gives you guidance to experimental tests of ideas -- your own and those offered by others…
In science it is instinctive and necessary to accept and consider seriously contrary views because if not considered, we may go in an erroneous direction and not learn the truth. This instinct is just the opposite of the norm in politics. In partisan politics, ideology is a dominant driver, and ideas contrary to our ideology are rarely considered because of this logic: If the idea is wrong, we will just waste our valuable time and resources. If it might possibly be right, it would throw our ideology into question and this would cause too much disruption of shake our institutional values which are more important than one point. Besides, if we changed on the basis of a contrary thought, we would be accused of being a flip flopper with no basic principles. For scientists, change and expansion of ideas is essential to the advancement of science. In politics, most practitioner regard it as success if the can govern in the exact way that their political ideology guides them. Few want to reform or alter their ideology. Those who do so are either rejected by the body politic, or who become the greatest of our leaders and politicians.
Frederick Seitz, 1911–2008, Physicist & President of the National Academy of Sciences, Interview, George C. Marshall Institute, September 3, 1997
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Islamic modernists like Serageldin are many among the educated Muslims but their views are often drowned out by the violence and extremist statements of the fundamentalists.
Frederick Seitz was an American physicist and a pioneer of solid state physics.
