A Quote by Karl Popper

Thus science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths; neither with the collection of observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of magical techniques and practices.

Karl Popper

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Begin Collection Critical Criticism Discussion Experiments Invention Magical Must Myths Neither Nor Observations Practices Science Techniques Thus

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Karl Popper
Austrian - Philosopher
July 28, 1902 - September 17, 1994

Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.

Karl Popper

I think of evolution as a myth, like the Norse myths, the Greek myths - anybody's myths. But it was created for a rational age.

Tom Wolfe

Myths, as compared with folk tales, are usually in a special category of seriousness: they are believed to have "really happened,"or to have some exceptional significance in explaining certain features of life, such as ritual. Again, whereas folk tales simply interchange motifs and develop variants, myths show an odd tendency to stick together and build up bigger structures. We have creation myths, fall and flood myths, metamorphose and dying-god myths.

Northrop Frye

Myths are the prototype for all stories. When we write a story on our own it can't help but link up with all sorts of myths. Myths are like a reservoir containing every story there is.

Haruki Murakami

Myths are about the human struggle to deal with the great passages of time and life--birth, death, marriage, the transitions from childhood to adulthood to old age. They meet a need in the psychological or spiritual nature of humans that has absolutely nothing to do with science. To try to turn a myth into a science, or a science into a myth, is an insult to myths, an insult to religion, and an insult to science. In attempting to do this, creationists have missed the significance, meaning, and sublime nature of myths. They took a beautiful story of creation and re-creation and ruined it.

Michael Shermer

The more real things get, the more like myths they become. There have always been myths, but the myths of earlier times were, Im convinced, bad ones, because they made people sick. So certainly, if we can tell evil stories to make people sick, we can also tell good myths that make them well.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

One can discern a few very general myths that facilitate the birth of further myths: that everything is possible; that whatever we have failed to explain in normal and earthly terms must have paranormal or supernatural explanations; and that science, being rational, cannot explain the irrational, such as taste and love.

Mario Bunge

It's only recently that I've come to understand that writers are not marginal to our society, that they, in fact, do all our thinking for us, that we are writing myths and our myths are believed, and that old myths are believed until someone writes a new one.

Kurt Vonnegut

I don't believe in myths of decline or myths of progress, even as regards the literary scene.

Harold Bloom

If the equality of individuals and the dignity of man be myths, they are myths to which the republic is committed.

Howard Mumford Jones

Perhaps the greatest myth being purveyed, is that myths are just myths.

Michael Tsarion

All my stories are like the Greek and Roman myths, and the Egyptian myths, and the Old and New Testament.

Ray Bradbury

I'm always interested in debunking myths if they are untrue. But it's also important to identify myths and how they function, what value they may have.

Neal Ascherson

writers are makers, not just transmitters, of myths. Literature offers not only myths but counter-myths, just as life offers counter-experiences - experiences that confound what you thought you thought, or felt, or believed.

Susan Sontag

Myths of the heroes are cosmic creation myths in microcosm. They depict, in no matter how subtle variation, the eternal battle we wage to release the creative energies within ourselves and in the world.

Dorothy Norman

Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths. We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. I have bought this wonderful machine — a computer ... it seems to me to be an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy.

Joseph Campbell

A Quote by Karl Popper

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