A Quote by John Henry Holland

With theory, we can separate fundamental characteristics from fascinating idiosyncrasies and incidental features. Theory supplies landmarks and guideposts, and we begin to know what to observe and where to act.

John Henry Holland

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Act Begin Characteristics Fascinating Features Fundamental Idiosyncrasies Know Landmarks Observe Separate Supplies Theory

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John Henry Holland
American - Scientist
February 2, 1929 - August 9, 2015

I think literary theory has not been terribly good for English studies in a while. It's not that theory isn't interesting, but it isn't about books, or the idiosyncrasies and complexities of putting language together.

A. S. Byatt

The theory of chaos and theory of fractals are separate, but have very strong intersections. That is one part of chaos theory is geometrically expressed by fractal shapes.

Benoit Mandelbrot

I'd say many features of string theory don't mesh with what we observe in everyday life.

Brian Greene

Christianity is not a political theory. It is not even a cultural theory. It is, at its root, all about changing the heart of each man and woman, boy and girl, so that we begin to think God's thoughts and act in accordance with his character.

Ravi Zacharias

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.

Douglas J. Futuyma

The concept of 'measurement' becomes so fuzzy on reflection that it is quite surprising to have it appearing in physical theory at the most fundamental level ... does not any analysis of measurement require concepts more fundamental than measurement? And should not the fundamental theory be about these more fundamental concepts?

John Stewart Bell

Whether or not you can observe a thing depends upon the theory you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed.

Albert Einstein

Evolution ... is really two theories, the vague theory and the precise theory. The vague theory has been abundantly proved.... The precise theory has never been proved at all. However, like relativity, it is accepted on faith.... On getting down to actual details, difficulties begin.

Anthony Standen

When I was in high school, I was really into string theory and superstring theory and read 'Scientific American.' It's fascinating.

Sam Trammell

No theory of reality compatible with quantum theory can require spatially separate events to be independent.

John Stewart Bell

Our best theory of describing space at a fundamental level is probably string theory.

Alan Guth

... on principle, it is quite wrong to try founding a theory on observable magnitudes alone. In reality the very opposite happens. It is the theory which decides what we can observe.

Albert Einstein

What is especially striking and remarkable is that in fundamental physics a beautiful or elegant theory is more likely to be right than a theory that is inelegant.

Murray Gell-Mann

Theory and fact are equally strong and utterly interdependent; one has no meaning without the other. We need theory to organize and interpret facts, even to know what we can or might observe. And we need facts to validate theories and give them substance.

Stephen Jay Gould

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.

Clayton Christensen

We lay down a fundamental principle of generalization by abstraction: The existence of analogies between central features of various theories implies the existence of a general theory which underlies the particular theories and unifies them with respect to those central features.

E. H. Moore

A Quote by John Henry Holland

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