A Quote by J. Robert Oppenheimer
The theory of our modern technic shows that nothing is as practical as theory.
Related Quotes
I make a distinction between theory and methodology, the latter being the practical deployment of a premise. Theory on the contrary may well be applied, hence becomes methodology without a hitch, but isn't necessarily practical at all.
But actually theory is very practical. Gravity is a theory, for example. It allows you to predict that if you step off a cliff you will fall; you don't have to collect data on that.
If the theory accurately predicts what they [scientists] see, it confirms that it's a good theory. If they see something that the theory didn't lead them to believe, that's what Thomas Kuhn calls an anomaly. The anomaly requires a revised theory - and you just keep going through the cycle, making a better theory.
If you're a physicist, for heaven's sake, and here is the experiment, and you have a theory, and the theory doesn't agree with the experiment, then you have to cut out the theory. You were wrong with the theory.
There is nothing so practical as a good theory.
Nothing is more practical than a good theory.
There is nothing more practical than a good theory.
Whichever theory we adopt to give a rational explanation of human existence, that theory must take into account and explain the mental nature we see at work in all modern communities.
No one must think that Newton’s great creation can be overthrown in any real sense by this [Theory of Relativity] or by any other theory. His clear and wide ideas will for ever retain their significance as the foundation on which our modern conceptions of physics have been built.
Creationists have long held that evolutionary theory is atheistic; defenders of the theory do the theory no favor when they agree.
Human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all.
If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make reality the basis of our philosophy? But we cannot distinguish what is real about the universe without a theory. It makes no sense to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what reality is independent of a theory.
Experience by itself teaches nothing... Without theory, experience has no meaning. Without theory, one has no questions to ask. Hence, without theory, there is no learning.
The theory of free speech, that truth is so much larger and stranger and more many-sided than we know of, that it is very much better at all costs to hear everyone's account of it, is a theory which has been justified on the whole by experiment, but which remains a very daring and even a very surprising theory. It is really one of the great discoveries of the modern time.
Creationists reject Darwin's theory of evolution on the grounds that it is "just a theory". This is a valid criticism: evolution is indeed merely "a theory", albeit one with ten billion times more credence than the theory of creationism - although, to be fair, the theory of creationism is more than just a theory. It's also a fairy story. And children love fairy stories, which is presumably why so many creationists are keen to have their whimsical gibberish taught in schools.
As to harmonizing the theory of evolution with the Biblical account of creation, I do not believe it can be done, and I do not see why it should be. The story of Genesis is beautiful, and profoundly significant as symbolism: there is no good reason to torture it into conformity with modern theory.
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