Lewis Carroll Quotes
Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife - what's the answer to that?
Carroll, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Macmillan and Co., 1872, p. 195.
This quotation illustrates a scientific principle that is at the heart of several political issues. Specifically the debate over whether creationism should be taught in science classes along with evolution. The major reason that almost all serious scientists (religious and secular both) oppose teaching creationism is that it is not a “falsifiable” set of statements—that is there is no way to prove it or disprove it. There are scientific statements that can be proved or disproved but have not yet been so. To be a scientific statement, it must be falsifiable—logically provable or disprovable. And this is the logic which the Federal Courts have used in ruling that creationism may not be taught in science classes in public schools. This quotation, Pauli is saying that the paper is not falsifiable—it cannot be proved and cannot be refuted. As such it is not scientific and belongs in the realm of philosophy, literature, theology, or other disciplines, but not science. An example of non-falsifiable statements are: “Blue is the most attractive color.”; “Freedom is essential to capitalism”; “Monarchy is more efficient than theocracy”.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English writer of children's fiction, notably Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass. He was noted for his facility with word play, logic, and fantasy. The poems "Jabberwocky" and The Hunting of the Snark are classified in the genre of literary nonsense. He was also a mathematician, photographer, inventor and Anglican deacon.
