www.goodwordsbadwords.fun - Science & statistics

Research is formalized curiosity, it is poking and prying with a purpose. Zora Neale Hurston

Das is nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch: “Not only isn’t this right, it isn’t even wrong." Wolfgang Pauli. Any argument that purports to be scientific but fails at some fundamental level, usually in that it contains a terminal logical fallacy or it cannot be falsified by experiment (i.e. tested with the possibility of being rejected), or cannot be used to make predictions about the natural world

Anything which uses science as part of its name isn't: political science, creation science, computer science. Hal Abelson

The misnaming of fields of study is so common as to lead to what might be general systems laws. For example, Frank Harary once suggested the law that any field that had the word "science" in its name was guaranteed thereby not to be a science. He would cite as examples Military Science, Library Science, Political Science, Homemaking Science, Social Science, and Computer Science. Discuss the generality of this law, and possible reasons for its predictive power. Gerald Weinberg

Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl. Mike Adams

Psychologists are scientists about as much as converted savages are Christians. Georges Politzer

Psychiatry as practised by some of today's itinerant experts-for-hire is this century's alchemy. No, that is unfair to alchemists, who were confused but honest. George F. Will

The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the ‘social sciences’ is: some do, some don’t. Ernest Rutherford

Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it. Richard P. Feynman

Science is a procedure for testing and rejecting hypothesis, not a compendium of certain knowledge. Stephen Jay Gould

Science is not a sacred cow. Science is a horse. Don’t worship it. Feed it. Aubrey Eben

Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more science than a heap of stones is a house. Jules Henri Poincaré

Inquiry is fatal to certainty. Will Durant

A medical maxim - when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses before zebras. Harley Smith

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken

UFOs are better explained in terms of the unknown irrationalities of terrestrial beings rather than by any unknown rationalities of extra-terrestrial beings. Richard Feynman

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. Aldous Huxley

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the spider-web of facts, many a truth is strangled. Paul Eldridge

The press and the public like certainty and affirmation of popular biases. But real science thrives on the capacity for doubt. Wendy Kaminer

True science teaches, above all, to doubt and to be ignorant. Miguel de Unamuno

If it weren't for electricity, we'd all be watching television by candlelight. George Gobel

Although this may seem a paradox, all exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation. Bertrand Russell

Science is really in the business of disproving current models or changing them to conform to new information. In essence, we are constantly proving our latest ideas wrong. David Suzuki

You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things. But I'm not absolutely sure of anything, and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit; if I can't figure it out, then I go onto something else. But I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell -- possibly. It doesn't frighten me. Richard Feynman

The word theory, as used in the natural sciences, doesn't mean an idea tentatively held for purposes of argument — that we call a hypothesis. Rather, a theory is a set of logically consistent abstract principles that explain a body of concrete facts. It is the logical connections among the principles and the facts that characterize a theory as truth. No one element of a theory, not a single fact or principle, can be changed without creating a logical contradiction that invalidates the entire system. Thus, although it may not be possible to substantiate directly a particular principle in the theory, the principle is validated by the consistency of the entire logical structure. Alan Cromer, Uncommon Sense: The Heretical Nature of Science (1993)

I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject) as soon as the facts are shown to be opposed to it. Charles Darwin

No other explanation has ever been given of the marvellous fact that the embryos of a man, dog, seal, bat, reptile, etc., can at first hardly be distinguished from each other. Charles Darwin

The insistence upon the untrustworthiness of science is usually, if not always, subtle propaganda in favour of some theology or metaphysics which would take us farther away from the world of obdurate reality rather than give us a clearer view. Amid the welter of such day-dreams, it is safe to cling to scientific fact. The conclusions of science are the surest knowledge we have; and so far as science goes, we can trust it more confidently than any other brand of truth. Durant Drake, Invitation to Philosophy (1933)

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. Arthur C. Clarke

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke

You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching and you will be a disgrace to yourself and your family. Dr Robert Darwin, letter to his son

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.Hippocrates

The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence. Science is simply common sense at its best — that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic. Thomas Henry, "Evolution and Ethics" (1893)

Infinite: Limitless or endless in space, extent, or size (Oxford Dictionary). Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some. Much bigger than that in fact, really amazingly immense, a totally stunning size, real 'wow, that's big', time. Infinity is just so big that by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy. Gigantic multiplied by colossal multiplied by staggeringly huge is the sort of concept we're trying to get across here. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The body is a self-building machine, a self-stoking, self-regulating, self-repairing machine - the most marvellous and unique automatic mechanism in the universe. J. Arthur Thomson

If it cannot be expressed in figures, it is not science, it is opinion. Robert A. Heinlein

Luck is probability taken personally. Chip Denman

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses a lamp post - more for support than illumination. Andrew Lang

Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. Aaron Levenstein

Statistics are like prisoners under torture: with the proper tweaking you can get them to confess to anything. John Rothchild

The average human being has one breast and one testicle. Stephen Grollman

It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong. John Maynard Keynes

THE NORMAL LAW OF ERROR STANDS OUT IN THE EXPERIENCE OF MANKIND AS ONE OF THE BROADEST GENERALISATIONS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY IT SERVES AS THE GUIDING INSTRUMENT IN RESEARCHES IN THE PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES AND IN MEDICINE AGRICULTURE AND ENGINEERING IT IS AN INDISPENSABLE TOOL FOR THE ANALYSIS AND THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BASIC DATA OBTAINED BY OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENT

W. J. Youden

Das computenmachine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen, und poppencorken mit spittzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in das pokets, relaxen und watch das blinkenlights. Anon.