Sidney Altman Quotes

Particular facts are never scientific; only generalization can establish science.

Data don't generate theory - only researchers do that.

We first observe facts, then generalise, and then draw conclusions or principles.

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.

Hypotheses are what we lack the least.

In experimental philosophy, we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur by which they may either be made more accurate or liable to exceptions.

My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts.

Experience seems to most of us to lead to conclusions, but empiricism has sworn never to draw them.

Theorists have wonderful ideas which take years and years to be verified.

At the beginning of all experimental work stands the choice of the appropriate technique of investigation.

The paradigm of physics - with its interplay of data, theory and prediction - is the most powerful in science.

Just as houses are made of stone, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house, and a collection of facts is not necessarily science

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.

The process of induction is the process of assuming the simplest law that can be made to harmonize with our experience.

Intuition is the source of scientific knowledge.

The scientific discovery appears first as the hypothesis of an analogy; and science tends to become independent of the hypothesis.

Observation is so wide awake, and facts are being so rapidly added to the sum of human experience, that it appears as if the theorizer would always be in arrears, and were doomed forever to arrive at imperfect conclusion; but the power to perceive a law is equally rare in all ages of the world, and depends but little on the number of facts observed.

Induction is a process of inference; it proceeds from the known to the unknown.

It is a very long and very difficult road from a fact to a conclusion. But it is a million times longer from a theory to a fact.

For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses.

Science sometimes improves hypotheses and sometimes disproves them. But proof would be another matter and perhaps never occurs except in the realms of totally abstract tautology. We can sometimes say that if such and such abstract suppositions or postulates are given, then such and such abstract suppositions or postulates are given, then such and such must follow absolutely. But the truth about what can be perceived or arrived at by induction from perception is something else again.

If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another - but which one? Differences are crucial.

The theory must not contradict empirical facts.

I must begin, not with hypothesis, but with specific instances, no matter how minute.

... the actual and physical conduct of an experiment must govern the statistical procedure of its interpretation.