A Quote by Nelson Goodman

For if as scientists we seek simplicity, then obviously we try the simplest surviving theory first, and retreat from it only when it proves false. Not this course, but any other, requires explanation. If you want to go somewhere quickly, and several alternate routes are equally likely to be open, no one asks why you take the shortest. The simplest theory is to be chosen not because it is the most likely to be true but because it is scientifically the most rewarding among equally likely alternatives. We aim at simplicity and hope for truth.

Nelson Goodman

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Aim Alternate Alternatives Among Any Asks Be True Because Chosen Course Equally Explanation False First Go Hope Likely Most Obviously Only Open Other Proves Quickly Requires Retreat Rewarding Routes Scientists Seek Several Shortest Simplest Simplicity Somewhere Surviving Take Then Theory True Truth Try Want Why

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Nelson Goodman
American - Philosopher
August 7, 1906 - November 25, 1998

The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanation of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be ``Seek simplicity and distrust it.''

Alfred North Whitehead

The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanation of complex facts... Seek simplicity and distrust it.

Alfred North Whitehead

The simplest explanation is always the most likely.

Agatha Christie

Catastrophe Theory is-quite likely-the first coherent attempt (since Aristotelian logic) to give a theory on analogy. When narrow-minded scientists object to Catastrophe Theory that it gives no more than analogies, or metaphors, they do not realise that they are stating the proper aim of Catastrophe Theory, which is to classify all possible types of analogous situations.

Rene Thom

Don't compromise quickly. Women are more likely to automatically take the first offer on the table because we're more likely to feel "lucky" to be employed at all. But remember, negotiation isn't necessarily one round: you can come back with other asks, even if those things aren't money.

Jessica Bennett

Whatever is almost true is quite false, and among the most dangerous of errors, because being so near truth, it is more likely to lead astray.

Henry Ward Beecher

To produce a really good biological theory one must try to see through the clutter produced by evolution to the basic mechanisms lying beneath them, realizing that they are likely to be overlaid by other, secondary mechanisms. What seems to physicists to be a hopelessly complicated process may have been what nature found simplest, because nature could only build on what was already there.

Francis Crick

Renegade scientists and totalitarian loonies are not the folks most likely to abuse genetic engineering. You and I are-not because we are bad but because we want to do good. In a world dominated by competition, parents understandably want to give their kids every advantage. ... The most likely way for eugenics to enter into our lives is through the front door as nervous parents ... will fall over one another to be first to give Junior a better set of genes.

Arthur Caplan

Because you've been exposed to Western tonal music, you know after a certain chord sequence what the next possibilities are. Your brain has compiled a statistical map of which ones are most likely and least likely. If the song keeps hitting the most likely notes, you'll get bored, and if it's always the least likely ones, you'll get irritated.

Daniel Levitin

You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.

Agatha Christie

So when you ask me how string theory might be tested, I can tell you what's likely to happen at accelerators or some parts of the theory that are likely to be tested.

Edward Witten

In order to achieve a true understanding of string theory, some new idea will be required, and most likely, some break with the concepts on which we've traditionally based physical theory.

David Gross

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. A theory appears to be beautiful or elegant (or simple, if you prefer) when it can be expressed concisely in terms of mathematics we already have. Symmetry exhibits the simplicity. The Foundamental Law is such that the different skins of the onion resemble one another and therefore the math for one skin allows you to express beautifully and simply the phenomenon of the next skin.

Murray Gell-Mann

To take, for example, my own death: what I consider most likely to be true is that death will be the complete and utter end of my existence, with no successor existence of any kind that can be related to me as I now am. And if that is not the case, the next most likely scenario, it seems to me, is something along the lines indicated by Schopenhauer. But neither of these is what I most want. What I want to be true is that I have an individual, innermost self, a soul, which is the real me and which survives my death. That too could be true. But alas, I do not believe it.

Bryan Magee

The most likely victim of actual religious discrimination in British society is a Muslim but the person who is most likely to feel slighted because of their religion is an evangelical Christian.

Trevor Phillips

The most likely victim of actual religious discrimination in British society is a Muslim, but the person who is most likely to feel slighted because of their religion is an evangelical Christian.

Trevor Phillips

A Quote by Nelson Goodman

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