A Quote by Richard Lewontin
In my mind the job of a natural scientist is to bend over backwards to say something which can be demonstrated to be true or at least which is not of such a nature that there's no way to demonstrate that it's false.
Related Quotes
It's a false choice to say we either have job safety or job growth. It's a false choice to suggest that the only way for a business to survive is to make sure workers have low wages and little or no benefits. There are ample models across this country where we've demonstrated the contrary.
I had learnt from experience that many false opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in the least altering the habits of mind of which false opinions are made.
We don't know where the lines should be drawn. Which to me means that we people of goodwill have to bend over backwards to be scrupulous, to be exceedingly careful about code words, about messages, so as not to inflame the evil angels in our nature, if you will.
There is a false modesty, which is vanity; a false glory, which is levity; a false grandeur, which is meanness; a false virtue, which is hypocrisy, and a false wisdom, which is prudery.
We are not to renounce our senses and experience, nor (that which is the undoubted Word of God) our natural Reason. For they are the talents which he hath put into our hands to negotiate, till the coming again of our blessed savior, and therefore not to be folded up in the napkin of an implicate faith, but employed in the purchase of justice, peace, and true religion. For though there be many things in God's Word above Reason--that is to say, which cannot by natural reason be either demonstrated or confuted--yet there is nothing contrary to it.
When you once see something as false which you have accepted as true, as natural, as human, then you can never go back to it.
There are huge areas where the human mind is apparently incapable of forming sciences, or at least has not done so. There are other areas - so far, in fact, one area only [physics] - in which we have demonstrated the capacity for true scientific progress.
The scientist is not responsible for the laws of nature. It is his job to find out how these laws operate. It is the scientist's job to find the ways in which these laws can serve the human will. However, it is not the scientist's job to determine whether a hydrogen bomb should be constructed, whether it should be used, or how it should be used. This responsibility rests with the American people and with their chosen representatives.
You can call it tathata, suchness. 'Suchness' is a Buddhist way of expressing that there is something in you which always remains in its intrinsic nature, never changing. It always remains in its selfsame essence, eternally so. That is your real nature. That which changes is not you, that is mind. That which does not change in you is buddha-mind. You can call it no-mind, you can call it samadhi, satori. It depends upon you; you can give it whatsoever name you want. You can call it christ-consciousness.
A fad or heresy is the exaltation of something which even if true, is secondary or temporary in its nature against those things which are essential and eternal, those things which always prove themselves true in the long run. In short, it is the setting up of the mood against the mind.
The ability to discriminate between that which is true and that which is false is one of the last attainments of the human mind.
I would confide to you perhaps my secret profession of faith - which is ... which is ... that let us say and do what we please and can ... there is a natural inferiority of mind in women - of the intellect ... not by any means, of the moral nature - and that the history of Art and of genius testifies to this fact openly.
Intuitionists think that there are cases in which, say, some identity statement between real numbers is neither true nor false, even though we know that it cannot possibly be false. That is: We know that it cannot not be that a = b, say, but we cannot conclude that a = b. We can't, in general, move from not-not-p to p in intuitionistic logic. , I suggest that the believer in vague objects should say something similar. It can never be true that it is vague whether A is B. But that does not imply that there is always a fact of the matter whether A is B.
I'm more of somebody who'll bend over backwards for people and, you know, wait at the back of the line until everybody's taken care of. That's really my nature.
The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalize false statements made in error, we open up the way for false statements by intention. And a false statement of fact, made deliberately, is the most serious crime a scientist can commit.
Our reasonings are grounded upon two great principles, that of contradiction, in virtue of which we judge false that which involves a contradiction, and true that which is opposed or contradictory to the false.
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