Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes

Science, my lad, has been built upon many errors; but they are errors which it was good to fall into, for they led to the truth.

Men of science have made abundant mistakes of every kind; their knowledge has improved only because of their gradual abandonment of ancient errors, poor approximations, and premature conclusions.

The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does.

Science is bound, by the everlasting vow of honor, to face fearlessly every problem which can be fairly presented to it.

Honorable errors do not count as failures in science, but as seeds for progress in the quintessential activity of correction.

It sounds paradoxical to say the attainment of scientific truth has been effected, to a great extent, by the help of scientific errors.

Objectivity consists in understanding that the only one who never makes a mistake is the one who never does anything.

If there ever was a misnomer, it is "exact science." Science has always been full of mistakes. The present day is no exception. And our mistakes are good mistakes; they require a genius to correct. Of course, we do not see our own mistakes.

Science is a way to not fool ourselves.

The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities-perhaps the only one-in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there. In most other fields of human endeavour there is change, but rarely progress ... And in most fields we do not even know how to evaluate change.

I'm finding my way, and I make mistakes.

We all make mistakes. If you can't make mistakes, you can't make decisions. I've made a lot bigger mistakes myself.

If you didn’t make mistakes you wouldn't get far.

Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.

Science is a way of thinking that helps you not to fool yourself.

Don't think that I'm - I'd- I'm infallible. Will always make mistakes.

Mistakes are a fact of life. If you are willing to be wrong then you have earned the right to be right.

Sometimes you don’t just want to risk making mistakes; you actually want to make them - if only to give you something clear and detailed to fix.

I learn from my mistakes. It’s a very painful way to learn, but without pain, the old saying is, there’s no gain.

Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves.

All I ever do is learn from my mistakes so I don't make the same ones again. Then I make new ones.

For all its beauty, honesty, and effectiveness at improving the human condition, science demands a terrible price - that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, whether we like it or not. It's about consensus and teamwork and respectful critical argument, working with, and through, natural law. It requires that we utter, frequently, those hateful words - 'I might be wrong.'

Your job as a scientist is to figure out how you're fooling yourself.

I sometimes react to making a mistake as if I have betrayed myself. My fear of making a mistake seems to be based on the hidden assumption that I am potentially perfect and that if I can just be very careful I will not fall from heaven. But a 'mistake' is a declaration of the way I am, a jolt to the way I intend, a reminder I am not dealing with the facts. When I have listened to my mistakes I have grown.

Make mistakes faster.