Louis MacNeice Quotes

The most essential characteristic of scientific technique is that it proceeds from experiment, not from tradition.

In science, mistakes always precede the truth

In nature, when you conduct science, it is the natural world that is the ultimate decider in what is true and what is not.

The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority.

My background is basically scientific math. My Dad was a physicist, so I have it in my blood somewhere. Scientific method is very important to me. I think anything that contradicts it is probably not true.

The true method of knowledge is experiment.

I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments, and demonstrations.

An investigator starts research in a new field with faith, a foggy idea, and a few wild experiments. Eventually the interplay of negative and positive results guides the work. By the time the research is completed, he or she knows how it should have been started and conducted.

In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.

Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.

The good thing about science is that it is true whether or not you believe in it.

If we are ever to discover the laws of nature, we must do so by obtaining the most accurate acquaintance with the facts of nature, and not by dressing up in philosophical language the loose opinions of men who had no knowledge of the facts

Science is a progressive activity. The outstanding peculiarity of man is that he stumbled onto the possibility of progressive activities. Such progress, the accumulation of experience from generation to generation, depended first on the development of language, then of writing and finally of printing. These allowed the accumulation of tradition and of knowledge, of the whole aura of cultural inheritance that surrounds us. This has so conditioned our existence that it is almost impossible for us to stop and examine the nature of our culture. We accept it as we accept the air we breathe; we are as unconscious of our culture as a fish, presumably, is of water.

A fool, Mr, Edgeworth, is one who has never made an experiment.

A good scientific theory is one which is falsifiable, which has not been falsified.

What is the fundamental hypothesis of science, the fundamental philosophy? We stated it in the first chapter: the sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment. ... If we are told that the same experiment will always produce the same result, that is all very well, but if when we try it, it does not, then it does not. We just have to take what we see, and then formulate all the rest of our ideas in terms of our actual experience.

The love of experiment was very strong in him [Charles Darwin], and I can remember the way he would say, "I shan't be easy till I have tried it," as if an outside force were driving him. He enjoyed experimenting much more than work which only entailed reasoning, and when he was engaged on one of his books which required argument and the marshalling of facts, he felt experimental work to be a rest or holiday.

When I was younger, I'd get very empirical with myself. "I have a hypothesis about myself. I'll put myself in a situation, see what happens, then I'll draw a conclusion based on the empirical evidence. Hypothesis: I can play basketball." So I'd try. "Conclusion: I cannot play basketball."

At issue is not only knowledge of the world but our survival as individuals and as a species. All the basic technologies ever invented by humans to feed and protect themselves depend on a relentless commitment to hard-nosed empiricism: you cannot assume that your arrowheads will pierce the hide of a bison or that your raft will float just because the omens are propitious and you have been given supernatural reassurance that they will. You have to be sure.

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

Experiment is folly when experience shows the way.

To learn anything other than the stuff you find in books, you need to be able to experiment, to make mistakes, to accept feedback, and to try again. It doesn't matter whether you are learning to ride a bike or starting a new career, the cycle of experiment, feedback, and new experiment is always there.

The difference between screwing around and science is writing it down.

Experiment is the mother of knowledge.