Bill Gates Quotes

The scientists from Franklin to Morse were clear thinkers and did not produce erroneous theories. The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane. Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.

As to science, we may well define it for our purpose as "methodical thinking directed toward finding regulative connections between our sensual experiences".

The wise man regulates his conduct by the theories both of religion and science. But he regards these theories not as statements of ultimate fact but as art-forms.

Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of Nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being.

Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.

Scientific research can reduce superstition by encouraging people to think and view things in terms of cause and effect.

But the real glory of science is that we can find a way of thinking such that the law is evident.

Anecdotal thinking comes naturally; science requires training.

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.

When I would hear the rabbi tell about some miracle such as a bush whose leaves were shaking but there wasn't any wind, I would try to fit the miracle into the real world and explain it in terms of natural phenomena.

But there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science.

I believe in the religion of reason -- the gospel of this world; in the development of the mind, in the accumulation of intellectual wealth, to the end that man may free himself from superstitious fear, to the end that he may take advantage of the forces of nature to feed and clothe the world.

I even agree that the concept of god helps some people lead better lives. That does happen. Don't ever forget it. I just think there are better ways to help people lead better lives.

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

There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.

Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense only as far as the guardsman's cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.

Physics is a good framework for thinking. ... Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there.

Until the seventeenth century there was no concept of evidence with which to pose the problem of induction!

I think we use God's word. I think the principles that you hear Dr. Phil and some of those others talk about many times are right out of the Bible.

Science, incidentally, not only ignores the question of indwelling 'essences' by looking instead at measurable relationships, but science also does not agree that knowledge is obtained through Rothbard's Medieval 'investigation by a reason,' i.e., by inventing definitions and then deducing what your definitions implicitly assumed.

Such is my veneration for every religion that reveals the attributes of the Deity, or a future state of rewards and punishments, that I had rather see the opinions of Confucius or Mahomed inculcated upon our youth than see them grow up wholly devoid of a system of religious principles.

I have a friend — or had a friend, now dead — Abdus Salam, a very devout Muslim, who was trying to bring science into the universities in the Gulf states and he told me that he had a terrible time because, although they were very receptive to technology, they felt that science would be a corrosive to religious belief, and they were worried about it… and damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive of religious belief, and it’s a good thing too.

In some ways we live in a world where things appear to be very logical, very rational, and mechanical aspects of our world are rather scientific and rather straightforward.

Science is not the affirmation of a set of beliefs but a process of inquiry aimed at building a testable body of knowledge constantly open to rejection or confirmation. In science, knowledge is fluid and certainty fleeting. That is at the heart of its limitations. It is also its greatest strength.

Wisdom lies in thinking. The spear-head of thinking is rationalism.