Craig Venter Quotes

Concepts are vindicated by the constant accrual of data and independent verification of data. No prize, not even a Nobel Prize, can make something true that is not true.

Science has authority, not because of white coats, or titles, but because of precision and transparency: you explain your theory, set out your evidence, and reference the studies that support your case.

Truth in science is always determined from observational facts.

Measurements, observations, descriptions can only be considered scientific when they are independently confirmed by other people.

Science consists exactly of those forms of knowledge that can be verified and duplicated by anybody.

There can be theory but, you know, the problem is you've got to be able to test it. So theories are one thing, testing is another.

One of the distinguishing features of anything that aspires to the name of science is the reproducibility of experimental results.

Science isn't about authority or white coats; it's about following a method. That method is built on core principles: precision and transparency; being clear about your methods; being honest about your results; and drawing a clear line between the results, on the one hand, and your judgment calls about how those results support a hypothesis.

Most physicists like myself won't believe the result until every possible caveat has been investigated and/or the result is confirmed elsewhere.

Science has a culture that is inherently cautious and that is normally not a bad thing. You could even say conservative, because of the peer review process and because the scientific method prizes uncertainty and penalises anyone who goes out on any sort of a limb that is not held in place by abundant and well-documented evidence.

I love science. I hate supposition, superstition, exaggeration and falsified data. Show me the research, show me the results, show me the conclusions - and then show me some qualified peer reviews of all that.

The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority.

The true method of knowledge is experiment.

The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.

In my grandfather's lab, scientists did independent research, and peers reviewed and commented on its merits. Politics, he taught me, had no place in the scientific process.

Moreover, in the experimental sciences, the scientific fraternity must test a new theory to destruction, if possible.

Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and enunciated truth.

You make observations, write theories to fit them, try experiments to disprove the theories and, if you can't, you've got something.

Theorists have wonderful ideas which take years and years to be verified.

Today's truth is tomorrow's null hypothesis-and next years's error.

The true contrast between science and myth is more nearly touched when we say that science alone is capable of verification.

In science, you can say things that seem crazy, but in the long run, they can turn out to be right. We can get really good evidence, and in the end, the community will come around.

Science doesn't work by voting. Did people vote on the theory of relativity? No! It's either right or it's wrong. Do we vote on whether genetics is a good theory or not? Of course not.

Every theory presented as a scientific concept is just that; it's a theory that tries to explain more about the world than previous theories have done. It is open to being challenged and to being proven incorrect.

A valid scientific theory is predictive, verifiable, and replicable. To me, that's beautiful.