Adam Smith Quotes

We don't regard any scientific theory as the absolute truth.

Science progresses best when observations force us to alter our preconceptions.

I don't bill myself as an atheist but as a naturalist. Naturalism is a belief system. A lot of scientists bristle at that. We all have to believe we can find the truth. Evidence is my guide. I rely on observation, experimentation and verification.

Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted.

I have great hope and faith, but it's a humanistic faith based in facts; you have to believe that facts exist. We can all arrive at the same facts if we engage in the process of experimentation, observation, and verification, which can solve more of the world's major problems than a debate over whether God does or doesn't exist.

Hypotheses are what we lack the least.

Theories, for me, are just about freeing your mind. It doesn't mean the theory is going to work like a scientific theory works. It's about freeing your mind and making you think a different way.

It is not his possession of knowledge, of irrefutable truth, that makes the man of science, but his persistent and recklessly critical quest for truth.

The criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.

To say that prediction is the purpose of a scientific theory is to confuse means with ends. It is like saying that the purpose of a spaceship is to burn fuel. ... Passing experimental tests is only one of many things a theory has to do to achieve the real purpose of science, which is to explain the world.

A good hypothesis in science must have other properties than those of the phenomenon it is immediately invoked to explain, otherwise it is not prolific enough.

A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: it must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.

If science were nothing more than the best means of teaching the love of the simple fact, the indispensable need of verification, of careful and accurate observation and statement, its value would be of the highest order.

It is the theory which decides what we can observe

Science is prediction, not explanation.

The strength of a theory is not what it allows, but what it prohibits; if you can invent an equally persuasive explanation for any outcome, you have zero knowledge.

It is a very long and very difficult road from a fact to a conclusion. But it is a million times longer from a theory to a fact.

Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.

Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose. To this single idea must the revolution be ascribed, by which, after groping in the dark for so many centuries, natural science was at length conducted into the path of certain progress.

The inexplicable happens all the time. It makes more sense to simply accept things we observe but cannot understand. It is really more scientific to keep an open mind. Until we can understand and explain the things we now label miracles, let us accept them and try to create more of them.

The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.

I have little patience with scientists who take a board of wood, look for its thinnest part, and drill a great number of holes where drilling is easy.

Rationalism doesn't require "belief," only observation. The real, measurable world doesn't care what you believe.

In science, one learns the most by studying what seems to be the least.

Even if individual researchers are prone to falling in love with their own theories, the broader process of peer review and institutionalized skepticism are designed to ensure that, eventually, the best ideas prevail.