The purpose of scientific enquiry is not to compile an inventory of factual information, nor to build up … - Peter Medawar

Same topic Authors

Quote of the day

The trace left behind is substituted for the practice. It exhibits the (voracious) property that the geographical system has of being able to transform action into legibility, but in doing so it causes a way of being in the world to be forgotten.

Peter Medawar

The purpose of scientific enquiry is not to compile an inventory of factual information, nor to build up a totalitarian world picture of natural Laws in which every event that is not compulsory is forbidden. We should think of it rather as a logically articulated structure of justifiable beliefs about nature.

Build, Enquiry, Information, Law, Scientific Method, Thinking

Same Author Quotes

The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.

Change, Human, Nature, New Beginnings, Strange, Treats

A scientist is no more a collector and classifier of facts than a historian is a man who complies and classifies a chronology of the dates of great battles and major discoveries.

Battle, Complies, Discovery, Man, Men, Scientist

Deductivism in mathematical literature and inductivism in scientific papers are simply the postures we choose to be seen in when the curtain goes up and the public sees us. The theatrical illusion is shattered if we ask what goes on behind the scenes. In real life discovery and justification are almost always different processes.

Deductivism, Differences, Justification, Real, Science, Simply

To deride the hope of progress is the ultimate fatuity, the last word in poverty of spirit and meanness of mind.

Hope, Mind, Poverty, Progress, Science, Word

Scientists who think science consists of unprejudiced data-gathering without speculation are merely cows grazing on the pasture of knowledge.

Consists, Cows, Knowledge, Past, Science, Scientists