Simone Weil Quotes

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

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

Science is not a substitute for common sense, but an extension of it.

Without a commitment to science and rationality in its proper domain, there can be no solution to the problems that engulf us. Still, the Yahoos never rest.

Never confuse faith, or belief — of any kind — with something even remotely intellectual.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and it is my job, my responsibility, as an astronomer to remind people that alien hypotheses should always be a last resort.

Reason and science allow us to properly think about the necessary data that are required in order to answer a given question. This is precisely why the scientific method is the most powerful framework for understanding the world.

I think all scientists are like detectives. We are most happy when we find something that doesn't fit our expectations.

There are a lot of scientists or other people who can be very skeptical or rational within their field, but they may well not do that in other aspects of their lives, when it comes to things like religion, or what have you. People have this amazing gift for being selective with their curiosity and skepticism.

On 'MythBusters,' a lot of what we do does not fall into any category of things we have ever done before. There's a lot of problem solving to figure out how to even approach a given problem. A background in science or engineering helps a lot.

Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life; whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation or the continuance of his species.

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

Another of the qualities of science is that it teaches the value of rational thought, as well as the importance of freedom of thought; the positive results that come from doubting that all the lessons are true... Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

The beauty of science hugely outranks the charms of superstition.

I think you have to be left-brained, to a certain extent, to understand science. I can talk about it, but I can't do it.

Belief cannot be reckoned with in terms of science, for science and faith are mutually exclusive.

Science is the tool of the Western mind and with it more doors can be opened than with bare hands.

The confidence in the unlimited power of science is only too often based on a false belief that the scientific method consists in the application of a ready-made technique, or in imitating the form rather than the substance of scientific procedure, as if one needed only to follow some cooking recipes to solve all social problems. It sometimes almost seems as if the techniques of science were more easily learnt than the thinking that shows us what the problems are and how to approach them.

In the long run, nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction religion offers to both is palpable.

The core of science is not a mathematical modeling--it is intellectual honesty. It is a willingness to have our certainties about the world constrained by good evidence and good argument.

There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything.

Pat answers to complex problems are the hallmark of intellectual mediocrity

In these researches I followed the principles of the experimental method that we have established, i.e., that, in presence of a well-noted, new fact which contradicts a theory, instead of keeping the theory and abandoning the fact, I should keep and study the fact, and I hastened to give up the theory.

The claim is also sometimes made that science is as arbitrary or irrational as all other claims to knowledge, or that reason itself is an illusion. As Ethan Allen said Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle that they are labouring to dethrone. If they argue without reason, which they must do, in order to be consistent with themselves, they are out of reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.

A real scientist solves problems, not wails that they are unsolvable.