Phillip E. Johnson Quotes

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.'

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.

Empirical interest will be in the facts so far as they are relevant to the solution of these problems.

Science is true, whether you believe it or not.

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

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

That said, ID does not qualify as science because it gives us nothing to test or measure. Science requires replicable tests involving measurable variables.

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.

Not as a demonstrated natural law, but as a working hypothesis.

I cannot stress often enough that what science is all about is not proving things to be true but proving them to be false.

The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.

Creationist critics often charge that evolution cannot be tested, and therefore cannot be viewed as a properly scientific subject at all. This claim is rhetorical nonsense.

Observation is a passive science, experimentation an active science.

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.

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.

… scientists are required to back up their claims not with private feelings but with publicly checkable evidence. Their experiments must have rigorous controls to eliminate spurious effects.

Educated guesswork' is what science is. You form hypotheses, test them against the evidence, and if they fit the evidence, you can assume you've got close to the truth.

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.

Science is simply a powerful way of understanding what's real and what isn't, what's true and what's not. It can help us determine what works, what doesn't, for whom, and under what circumstances.

Over the years, a number of other intriguing experimental ideas and areas of investigation have been the objects of my attention, and I have devoted some time and effort to exploring the inherent possbilities.

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.

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

Science, in the broadest sense, includes all reasonable claims to knowledge about ourselves and the world.

Of course, not everybody's willing to go out and do the experiments, but for the people who are willing to go out and do that, - if the experiments don't work, then it means it's not science.

A fact is a simple statement that everyone believes. It is innocent, unless found guilty. A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe. It is guilty, until found effective.