Research Constraints Quotes

If I had been a member of the academic establishment, I could have done other experiments.

There's nothing within science per se that says medical researchers must not experiment on human subjects; it is the imposition of ethical dogma that constrains the scientist.

People who are scientists today are scientists in spite of the system, typically, not because of it.

If I had gone to a big company, it would have been very difficult for me to do research freely. At a big company, say Sony, there are very, very good researchers. So I would have to ask them what I could do.

If I had taken a doctoral degree, it would have stifled any writing capacity.

Universities think people come up with great ideas by closing the door. The academic tenure process, where you have to publish to journals which are very narrow, stands in the way of great research.

We shall be forced to attempt planned and directed research employing hundreds of workers for many years, and this cannot be done without risking the loss of independence and originality. This is a serious and fundamental obstacle but it may be overcome in two ways.

As a historian, you can only go as far as the evidence will take you.

When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.

When the wrong question is being asked, it usually turns out to be because the right question is too difficult. Scientists ask questions they can answer. That is, it is often the case that the operations of a science are not a consequence of the problematic of that science, but that the problematic is induced by the available means.

Science today is locked into paradigms. Every avenue is blocked by beliefs that are wrong, and if you try to get anything published by a journal today, you will run against a paradigm and the editors will turn it down

Most of the research which is done is determined by the requirement that it shall, in a fairly obvious and predictable way, reinforce the approved or fashionable theories.

If humans are organisms like every other organism - which they are - then we should expect that if there are some domains where real scientific progress is possible, then there are others where it is not.

Everyone agrees that animals should not be exposed to unnecessary pain. But neither should scientists be hamstrung by the requirement to use anesthesia in every animal experiment that might cause pain.

I don't mean to offend anybody, but I think that we get a lot of scientists now who are bent into a system, and we lose some of their boldness by that. Obviously, you have to learn the ropes, but I think it's important to do that without hammering out the radicalness that makes innovation happen.

Every serious scientific worker is painfully conscious of this involuntary relegation to an ever-narrowing sphere of knowledge, which threatens to deprive the investigator of his broad horizon and degrades him to the level of a mechanic.