Jim Peebles Quotes

I just try to stuff my brain with everything that I can read on what is going on in science at a very high level, and sometimes I see connections of what might need to be done.

The history of science knows scores of instances where an investigator was in the possession of all the important facts for a new theory but simply failed to ask the right questions.

Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.

I had learned that science is a rewarding, active process of discovery, not the passive absorption of what others had discovered.

You can't train kids in a world where adults have no concept of what science literacy is. The adults are gonna squash the creativity that would manifest itself, because they're clueless about what it and why it matters. But science can always benefit from the more brains there are that are thinking about it - but that's true for any field.

The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas.

What intrigues basic scientists like me is that anytime we do a series of experiments, there are going to be three or four new questions that come up when you think you've answered one.

You learn that the interest is in what you don't yet know and that theories evolve. But we nonetheless have progress and improved knowledge over time.

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

In the spirit of science, there really is no such thing as a 'failed experiment.' Any test that yields valid data is a valid test.

Frequently, I have been asked if an experiment I have planned is pure or applied research; to me, it is more important to know if the experiment will yield new and probably enduring knowledge about nature.

This is at the heart of all good education, where the teacher asks students to think and engages them in encouraging dialogues, constantly checking for understanding and growth.

Science literacy is the artery through which the solutions of tomorrow's problems flow.

The true worth of an experimenter consists in his pursuing not only what he seeks in his experiment, but also what he did not seek.

I always say that keeping abreast of science should never be seen as a chore. It should be something you do naturally. I don't sit there reading 'New Scientist,' putting post-it notes next to ideas.

Hypotheses are what we lack the least.

Like any decent researcher, I throw away 90% of my research.

From all this it follows what the general character of the problem of the development of a body of scientific knowledge is, in so far as it depends on elements internal to science itself.

If you're an adult and you choose not to believe in science, fine, but please don't prevent your children from learning about it and letting them draw their own conclusions.

The intellectual takes as a starting point his self and relates the world to his own sensibilities; the scientist accepts an existing field of knowledge and seeks to map out the unexplored terrain.

If a scientist is not befuddled by what they're looking at, then they're not a research scientist.

We don't ask research to do what it was never meant to do, and that is to get an idea.

The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.

You've never seen me debate anybody. On anything. Ever. My investment of time, as an educator, in my judgment, is best served teaching people how to think about the world around them. Teach them how to pose a question. How to judge whether one thing is true versus another. What the laws of physics say.

I am not here concerned with intent, but with scientific standards, especially the ability to tell the difference between a fact, an opinion, a hypothesis, and a hole in the ground.