Against Excessive Skepticism

AGAINST EXCESSIVE SKEPTICISM

 "I am not very skeptical... a good deal of skepticism in a scientific man
  is advisable to avoid much loss of time, but I have met not a few men,
  who... have often thus been deterred from experiments or observations
  which would have proven servicable."   - Charles Darwin

 "Round about the accredited and orderly facts of every science there
  ever floats a sort of dust-cloud of exceptional observations, of
  occurrences minute and irregular and seldom met with, which it always
  proves more easy to ignore than to attend to... Anyone will renovate his
  science who will steadily look after the irregular phenomena, and when
  science is renewed, its new formulas often have more of the voice of the
  exceptions in them than of what were supposed to be the rules."
    - William James

  "I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the
  greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most
  obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of
  conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which
  they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by
  thread, into the fabric of their lives."  -Tolstoy

  "It is really quite amazing by what margins competent but conservative
  scientists and engineers can miss the mark, when they start with the
  preconceived idea that what they are invesigating is impossible.  When
  this happens, the most well-informed men become blinded by their
  prejudices and are unable to see what lies directly ahead of them."
   - Arthur C. Clarke, 1963

  "It is not uncommon for engineers to accept the reality of phenomena that
  are not yet understood, as it is very common for physicists to
  disbelieve the reality of phenomena that seem to contradict contemporary
  beliefs of physics" - H. Bauer

 "If a man is in too big a hurry to give up an error he is liable to
  give up some truth with it."  - Wilbur Wright, 1902

 "It's like religion.  Heresy (in science) is though of as a bad thing,
  whereas it should be just the opposite."  - T. Gold

 "Almost all really new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when
  they are first produced."  - Alfred North Whitehead

 "The creative person pays close attention to what appears discordant and
  contradictory... and is challenged by such irregularities."  - F. Barron

 "Genius in truth means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an
  unhabitual way"  - William James

 "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's First Law

 "There is no better soporific and sedative than skepticism." -Nietzche

 "The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively not by the false
  appearance of things present and which mislead into error, not directly
  by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by
  prejudice."  - Schopenhauer

 "Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be defeated, but
  they start a winning game."  - Goethe

 "The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have
  all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the
  possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new
  discoveries is exceedingly remote.... Our future discoveries must be
  looked for in the sixth place of decimals."  - Albert. A. Michelson,
    speech given in 1894 at the dedication of Ryerson Physics Lab,
    Univ. of Chicago,

 "There is no natural phenomenon that is comparable with the sudden
  and apparently accidentally timed development of science, except
  perhaps the condensation of a super-saturated gas or the explosion of
  some unpredictable explosives."  - Eugene P. Wigner

 "It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we
  discover."  - H. Poincare

 "Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of
  nature." - Michael Faraday

 "It is as fatal as it is cowardly to blink facts because they are not to
  our taste."   - Tyndall

 "Now, my suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we
  suppose, but queerer than we can suppose... I suspect that there are
  more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, in any philosophy"
  - J.B.S. Haldane

 "The whole of science consists of data that, at one time or another, were
  inexplicable."  - B. O'Regan

 "The only solid piece of scientific truth about which I feel totally
  conficent is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature... It is this
  sudden confrontation with the depth and scope of ignorance that
  represents the most significant contribution of twentieth-century
  science to the human intellect." -Lewis Thomas

 "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and
  making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually
  die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."  -M. Planck

  Science advances funeral by funeral. (Planck?)

  "Science for me is very close to art.  Scientific discovery is an
  irrational act. It's an intuition which turns out to be reality at the
  end of it--and I see no difference between a scientist developing a
  marvellous discovery and an artist making a painting."
    - C. Rubbia, Nobelist and CERN director

 "Scientists are not the paragons of rationality, objectivity,
  openmindedness and humility that many of them might like others to
  believe."  - Marcello Truzzi, CSICOP

 "If you restrict the journal to publishing only what pleases the
  referees, you end up publishing what is popular, and while it does make
  everyone feel more comfortable, you are guaranteed to miss the
  occasional breakthrough."  - A. Dessler, Editor, Geophysical Research
  Letters, (regarding small-comet bombardment of Earth.)

 "One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in
  contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers
  of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded
  and dull, but also just stupid."
            -- J. D. Watson  _The Double Helix_

 "When I examined myself and my methods of thought, I came to the
  conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent
  for absorbing positive knowledge."  - A. Einstein

 "A man with a new idea is a crank until he succeeds." - M. Twain

 "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas.  If your ideas are that
  good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."  - Howard Aiken

  "Who never walks save where he sees men's tracks makes no discoveries."
   - J.G. Holland

  "Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and are not,
   however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world."
   Einstein/Infeld in "The Evolution of Physics" 1938

  "A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth."  - G. Goebbles

  Never attribute to conspiracy that which is adequately explained by
  stupidity.

  Unnamed Law: If it happens, it must be possible.

  What I don't understand I despise, what I despise I reject.
  - THE REFEREE'S CREED

  "Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."
  - Frank Zappa



Now go look up "cognitive dissonance" on the www.
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William J. Beaty                                  SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb@eskimo.com                                  www.eskimo.com/~billb
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