A Quote by Albert Einstein
Discussion and argument are essential parts of science; the greatest talent is the ability to strip a theory until the simple basic idea emerges with clarity.
Related Quotes
People have extreme beliefs about whether it is right for humans to tamper with embryos in any way at all. Sometimes the values discussion gets conflated with the science discussion. We shouldn't pretend we're having an argument about science when we're having an argument about values.
There is a new venue for theory, necessarily impure, where it emerges in and as the very event of cultural translation. This is not the displacement of theory by historicism, nor a simple historicization of theory that exposes the contingent limits of its more generalizable claims.
The three parts of the theory are analytical ability, the ability to analyze things to judge, to criticize. Creative, the ability to create, to invent and discover and practical, the ability to apply and use what you know.
In my view, the argument from parsimony is really no argument at all - it typically functions only to shut down more interesting discussion. If history is any guide, it's never a good idea to assume that a scienti?c problem is cornered.
If you sense a deep human need, then you go back to all the basic science. If there is some missing, then you try to do more basic science and applied science until you get it. So you make the system to fulfill that need, rather than starting the other way around, where you have something and wonder what to do with it.
The supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a simple datum of experience.
What patients want is not rocket science, which is really unfortunate because if it were rocket science, we would be doing it. We are great at rocket science. We love rocket science. What we’re not good at are the things that are so simple and basic that we overlook them.
Try to find someone with a sense of humor. That's an important thing to have because when you get into an argument, one of the best ways to diffuse it is to be funny. You don't want to hide away from a point, because some points are serious, but you'd rather have a discussion that was a discussion, rather than an argument.
The idea that human beings have changed and are changing the basic climate system of the Earth through their industrial activities and burning of fossil fuels - the essence of the Greens' theory of global warming - has about as much basis in science as Marxism and Freudianism.
Although the theory of relativity makes the greatest of demands on the ability for abstract thought, still it fulfills the traditional requirements of science insofar as it permits a division of the world into subject and object (observer and observed) and, hence, a clear formulation of the law of causality.
To busy oneself with what is futile when one can do something useful, to attend to what is simple when one has the mettle to attempt what is difficult, is to strip talent of its dignity.
The risk of insult is the price of clarity. To be clearly understood one must speak the simple, essential truth as plainly as he is able.
Simplicity is all. Simple logic, simple arguments, simple visual images. If you can't reduce your argument to a few crisp words and phrases, there's something wrong with your argument. There's nothing long-winded about 'Liberté, égalité, fraternité'.
If the discussion centres on the essential principle of the E.U., the free movement of people and the ability to make decisions together, in that case, we don't want treaty change.
The error in positivism is that it takes as its standard of truth the contingently given division of labor, that between the science and social praxis as well as that within science itself, and allows no theory that could reveal the division of labor to be itself derivative and mediated and thus strip it of its false authority.
The theory of natural selection is the centerpiece of The Origin of Species and of evolutionary theory. It is this theory that accounts for the adaptations of organisms, those innumerable features that so wonderfully equip them for survival and reproduction; it is this theory that accounts for the divergence of species from common ancestors and thus for the endless diversity of life. Natural selection is a simple concept, but it is perhaps the most important idea in biology.
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