Claude Bernard Quotes

Science admits no exceptions; otherwise there would be no determinism in science, or rather, there would be no science.

The scientist believes in proof without certainty.

Science is objective. And in my view we cannot take any experimental results seriously except in the light of good explanations of them.

Science does not permit exceptions.

It's not clear in physics why you can't see the future.

Science is true, whether you believe it or not.

The facts will eventually test all our theories, and they form, after all, the only impartial jury to which we can appeal.

There is no more common error than to assume that, because prolonged and accurate mathematical calculations have been made, the application of the result to some fact of nature is absolutely certain.

Feelings are not everything! There is very little absolute truth in life.

We know the laws of trial and error, of large numbers and probabilities. We know that these laws are part of the mathematical and mechanical fabric of the universe, and that they are also at play in biological processes. But, in the name of the experimental method and out of our poor knowledge, are we really entitled to claim that everything happens by chance, to the exclusion of all other possibilities?

I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact.

Science is not about what's true or what might be true, science is about what people with originally diverse viewpoints can be forced to believe by the weight of public evidence.

Science is prediction, not explanation.

Experiment is the sole source of truth. It alone can teach us something new; it alone can give us certainty.

Where do we stand today compared to Greece circa 400 B.C.? Today's experiment-driven 'standard model' is not all that dissimilar to Democritus's speculative [sic] atomic theory.

If the evidence says you're wrong, you don't have the right theory. You change the theory, not the evidence.

Physicists like to think that all you have to do is say, these are the conditions, now what happens next?

The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth.

I should consider that I know nothing about physics if I were able to explain only how things might be, and were unable to demonstrate that they could not be otherwise.

First you guess. Don't laugh, this is the most important step. Then you compute the consequences. Compare the consequences to experience. If it disagrees with experience, the guess is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't matter how beautiful your guess is or how smart you are or what your name is. If it disagrees with experience, it's wrong. That's all there is to it.

A single test which proves some piece of theory wrong is more valuable than a hundred tests showing that idea might be true.

Theory can leave questions unanswered, but practice has to come up with something.

The natural scientist is concerned with a particular kind of phenomena ... he has to confine himself to that which is reproducible ... I do not claim that the reproducible by itself is more important than the unique. But I do claim that the unique exceeds the treatment by scientific method. Indeed it is the aim of this method to find and test natural laws.

But the real glory of science is that we can find a way of thinking such that the law is evident.