Jamie Hyneman Quotes

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."

The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind.

Science is defined in various ways, but today it is generally restricted to something which is experimental, which is repeatable, which can be predicted, and which is falsifiable.

The scientific method actually correctly uses the most direct evidence as the most reliable, because that's the way you are least likely to get led astray into dead ends and to misunderstand your data.

Hypotheses should be subservient only in explaining the properties of things but not assumed in determining them, unless so far as they may furnish experiments.

The true method of knowledge is experiment.

When the scientific method came into being, it gave us a new window on the truth; namely, a method by laboratory-controlled experiments to winnow true hypotheses from false ones.

Scientific method: There's a madness in the method.

About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!

For first of all we must prepare a Natural and Experimental History, sufficient and good; and this is the foundation of all; for we are not to imagine or suppose, but to discover, what nature does or may be made to do.

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

For me, science is just a bunch of tools - it's like playing the violin.

After all, what else is scientific enquiry of any sort other than a controlled version of banging one's head against the universe until something gives?

There's science and there's science, is all I'm saying. Where humans are the subjects, it's mostly not science

Even one well-made observation will be enough in many cases, just as one well-constructed experiment often suffices for the establishment of a law.

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

One of the distinguishing features of anything that aspires to the name of science is the reproducibility of experimental results.

Thus, in general, in the first instance, the direction of interest in empirical fact will be canalised by the logical structure of the theoretical system.

The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.

True science is never speculative; it employs hypotheses as suggesting points for inquiry, but it never adopts the hypotheses as though they were demonstrated propositions.

The best and safest method of philosophizing seems to be first to inquire diligently into the properties of things, and establishing those properties by experiments, and then to proceed more slowly to hypotheses for the explanation of them.

Truth in science is always determined from observational facts.

The proper method for inquiring after the properties of things is to deduce them from experiments.

The reason I spend so much of my time doing science is that the whole point of science is to help people resolve conflicting claims by saying: 'Show me the data.'

One finds the truth by making a hypothesis and comparing observations with the hypothesis.