Ian Hacking Quotes

The process of induction is the process of assuming the simplest law that can be made to harmonize with our experience.

One must credit an hypothesis with all that has had to be discovered in order to demolish it.

You can't prove any hypothesis, you can only improve or disprove it.

The exception tests the rule. Or, put another way, The exception proves that the rule is wrong." That is the principle of science. If there is an exception to any rule, and if it can be proved by observation, that rule is wrong.

If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn't seek to show that no crows are; it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.

The theory must not contradict empirical facts.

We must have the real thing before we can have a science of a thing.

In these researches I followed the principles of the experimental method that we have established, i.e., that, in presence of a well-noted, new fact which contradicts a theory, instead of keeping the theory and abandoning the fact, I should keep and study the fact, and I hastened to give up the theory.

Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.

The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.

Our belief in any particular natural law cannot have a safer basis than our unsuccessful critical attempts to refute it.

The strength of a theory is not what it allows, but what it prohibits; if you can invent an equally persuasive explanation for any outcome, you have zero knowledge.

If the evidence says you're wrong, you don't have the right theory. You change the theory, not the evidence.

There can be no ultimate statements science: there can be no statements in science which can not be tested, and therefore none which cannot in principle be refuted, by falsifying some of the conclusions which can be deduced from them.

Science is a way of equipping yourself with the tools to interpret what happens in front of you.

I should consider that I know nothing about physics if I were able to explain only how things might be, and were unable to demonstrate that they could not be otherwise.

Without deductive logic science would be entirely useless. It is merely a barren game to ascend from the particular to the general, unless afterwards we can reverse the process and descend from the general to the particular, ascending and descending like angels on Jacob's ladder.

It must be possible for an empirical system to be refuted by experience.

In the realm of scientific observation, luck is granted only to those who are prepared.

But the real glory of science is that we can find a way of thinking such that the law is evident.

To invent without scruple a new principle to every new phenomenon, instead of adapting it to the old; to overload our hypothesis with a variety of this kind, are certain proofs that none of these principles is the just one, and that we only desire, by a number of falsehoods, to cover our ignorance of the truth.

Without proper experiments I conclude nothing.

If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong.

It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable.

The physicist, in his study of natural phenomena, has two methods of making progress: (1) the method of experiment and observation, and (2) the method of mathematical reasoning. The former is just the collection of selected data; the latter enables one to infer results about experiments that have not been performed. There is no logical reason why the second method should be possible at all, but one has found in practice that it does work and meets with reasonable success.