Experimental Methodology Quotes

The history of science can be viewed as the recasting of phenomena that were once thought to be accidents as phenomena that can be understood in terms of fundamental causes and principles.

Experimental science is a craft and an art, and part of the art is knowing when to end a fruitless experiment. There is a danger of becoming obsessed with a fruitless experiment even if it goes nowhere.

He [William Harvey] did not care for chymistrey, and was wont to speake against them with an undervalue.

Many 'hard' scientists regard the term 'social science' as an oxymoron. Science means hypotheses you can test, and prove or disprove. Social science is little more than observation putting on airs.

I learned what research was all about as a research student [with] Stoppani ... Max Perutz, and ... Fred Sanger... From them, I always received an unspoken message which in my imagination I translated as "Do good experiments, and don't worry about the rest."

It is a failure of imagination and methodology to claim that it is necessary to experiment on millions of people without their consent in order to produce good data science.

God keep me from the divinity of Yes and Nothe Yea Nay Creeping Jesus, from supposing Up and Down to be the same thing as allexperimentalists must suppose.

The whole art of making experiments in chemistry is founded on the principle: we must always suppose an exact equality or equation between the principles of the body examined and those of the products of its analysis.

The investigation of making is illuminating towards that moment rather than the other way around, a reversal of the way that I would approach making a painting before. I think that it gets to a richer illumination of the moment, which is what I was trying to do at the beginning but going about it a little backwards.

Research in the natural sciences operates in successive approximations. We are glad to be able to offer many good problems for research by generations to come.

In fact, on one occasion, a rather pedantic experimental psychologist was telling him about a long, complicated experiment he had done, incorporating all the proper controls and using considerable technical virtuosity. When he saw Crick's exasperated expression he said, "but Dr. Crick, we have got it right - we know it's right," Crick's response was, "The point is not whether it's right. The point is: does it even matter whether its right or wrong?"

To be worthy of the name, an experimenter must be at once theorist and practitioner. While he must completely master the art of establishing experimental facts, which are the materials of science, he must also clearly understand the scientific principles which guide his reasoning through the varied experimental study of natural phenomena. We cannot separate these two things: head and hand. An able hand, without a head to direct it, is a blind tool; the head is powerless without its executive hand.

But the approach to recording this album was kind of an organized, chaotic approach where I wanted to maintain and preserve that wild abandon to creating.

Modern research divides nature into tiny pieces and conducts tests that conform neither with natural law nor with practical experience. The results are arranged for the convenience of research, not according to the needs of the farmer.