David Weinberger Quotes

Truth in science can be defined as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one.

With the new medium of knowledge - the Internet - knowledge not only takes on properties of that medium but also lives at the level of the network.

Every theory presented as a scientific concept is just that; it's a theory that tries to explain more about the world than previous theories have done. It is open to being challenged and to being proven incorrect.

One of the greatest features of science is that it doesn't matter where you were born, and it doesn't matter what the belief systems of your parents might have been: If you perform the same experiment that someone else did, at a different time and place, you'll get the same result.

It is that of increasing knowledge of empirical fact, intimately combined with changing interpretations of this body of fact - hence changing general statements about it - and, not least, a changing a structure of the theoretical system.

We don't regard any scientific theory as the absolute truth.

Science isn't about authority or white coats; it's about following a method. That method is built on core principles: precision and transparency; being clear about your methods; being honest about your results; and drawing a clear line between the results, on the one hand, and your judgment calls about how those results support a hypothesis.

Scientific research involves going beyond the well-trodden and well-tested ideas and theories that form the core of scientific knowledge. During the time scientists are working things out, some results will be right, and others will be wrong. Over time, the right results will emerge.

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.

Science is a self-correcting discipline that can, in subsequent generations, show that previous ideas were not correct.

You make observations, write theories to fit them, try experiments to disprove the theories and, if you can't, you've got something.

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.

Knowledge is now accepted as the best we humans can do at the moment, but with the hope that we will turn out to be wrong - and thus to advance our knowledge. What's happening to networked knowledge seems to make it much closer to the scientific idea of what knowledge is.

If you're a real scientist, you're constantly open to new data. Nothing is ever 100% validated.

Science doesn't work by voting. Did people vote on the theory of relativity? No! It's either right or it's wrong. Do we vote on whether genetics is a good theory or not? Of course not.

The term science means something quite different for our generation than it did not so many generations ago.

Science isn't done by consensus. It's done by rigorous testing.

Science is the acceptance of what works and the rejection of what does not. That needs more courage than we might think.

Science itself, therefore, may be regarded as a minimal problem, consisting of the completest possible presentment of facts with the least possible expenditure of thought.

Perhaps the main, as well as the least obvious, achievement of the Middle Ages, was the creation of the experimental spirit, or more exactly its slow incubation. This was primarily due to Muslims down to the end of the twelfth century, then to Christians.

(Reply on what constitutes scientific proof:)"The question is much too difficult for me.

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.

Science is an essentially anarchic enterprise.

It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. That is all there is to it.

Experiments are mediators between nature and idea.