Dimitar Sasselov Quotes

Traditional science assumes, for the most part, that an objective observer independent reality exists; the universe, stars, galaxies, sun, moon and earth would still be there if no one was looking.

Wherever there is objective truth, there is satire.

Our alleged facts might be true in all kinds of ways without contradicting any truth already known. I will dwell now on only one possible line of explanation, - not that I see any way of elucidating all the new phenomena I regard as genuine, but because it seems probable I may shed a light on some of those phenomena. All the phenomena of the universe are presumably in some way continuous; and certain facts, plucked as it were from the very heart of nature, are likely to be of use in our gradual discovery of facts which lie deeper still.

Natural science sharpens the discrimination. There is no false logic in nature. All its properties are permanent: the acids and metals never lie; their yea is yea, their nay, nay. They are newly discovered but not new.

Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.

The stronger the facts are there, you should achieve justice. You don't need to make sensationalized statements.

Both art and science are bent on the understanding of the forces that shape existence, and both call for a dedication to what is. Neither of them can tolerate capricious subjectivity because both are subject to their criteria of truth. Both require precision, order, and discipline because no comprehensible statement can be made without these. Both accept the sensory world as what the Middle Ages called signatura regrum, the signature of things, but in quite different ways.

Is not the truth the truth?

I don’t believe there are two sides to every argument. I think the facts are the center. And watching the news abandon the facts in favor of “fairness” is what’s troubling to me.

Some truths are truths, no matter who says them.

We should not assume; however, that just because something is unexplainable by us, it is unexplainable.

In a mathematical proposition, for example, the objectivity is given, but therefore its truth is also an indifferent truth.

Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation.

You're like a witness. You're the one who goes to the museum and looks at the paintings. I mean the paintings are there and you're in the museum too, near and far away at the same time. I'm a painting. Rocamadour is a painting. Etienne is a painting, this room is a painting. You think that you're in the room but you're not. You're looking at the room, you're not in the room.

Separate the story - your story - from facts.

The scientific process has two motives: one is to understand the natural world, the other is to control it.

I have never suggested any principled difference between the natural and social sciences.

From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed. ... To group all facts under some general laws.

If you want to assert a truth, first make sure it's not just an opinion that you desperately want to be true.

Everyone has been a witness sometime - It doesn't change it if you don't believe.

The absolute good is not a matter of opinion but of nature.

Reason must approach nature in order to be taught by it. It must not, however, do so in the character of a pupil who listens to everything that the teacher chooses to say, but of an appointed judge who compels the witness to answer questions which he has himself formulated.

Every true faith is infallible. It performs what the believing person hopes to find in it. But it does not offer the least support for the establishing of an objective truth. Here the ways of men divide. If you want to achieve peace of mind and happiness, have faith. If you want to be a disciple of truth, then search.

The remarkable feature of physical laws is that they apply everywhere, whether or not you choose to believe in them. After the laws of physics, everything else is opinion.

Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be.