Isaac Asimov Quotes

In degenerating programmes, however, theories are fabricated only in order to accommodate known facts

Science is a mechanism, a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe, and seeing whether they match.

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.

With no specific procedure, man arrived at sweeping conclusions about the universe that have proven to be true.

The facts will eventually test all our theories, and they form, after all, the only impartial jury to which we can appeal.

There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That’s perfectly all right: it’s the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process.

Discerning the merits of competing claims is where the empirical basis of science should play a role. I cannot stress often enough that what science is all about is not proving things to be true but proving them to be false. What fails the test of empirical reality, as determined by observation and experiment, gets thrown out like yesterday's newspaper.

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

The ultimate arbiter of truth is experiment, not the comfort one derives from one's a priori beliefs, nor the beauty or elegance one ascribes to one's theoretical models.

Natural science sharpens the discrimination. There is no false logic in nature. All its properties are permanent: the acids and metals never lie; their yea is yea, their nay, nay. They are newly discovered but not new.

A single test which proves some piece of theory wrong is more valuable than a hundred tests showing that idea might be true.

Our hypotheses are initially rooted in theoretical consistency and elegance, but...ultimatel y it is experiment not rigid belief that determines what is correct.

In science , all conclusions are provisional, subject to new evidence and better arguments, the very antithesis of religious faith.

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.

Science is nothing but perception.

The public has a distorted view of science because children are taught in school that science is a collection of firmly established truths. In fact, science is not a collection of truths. It is a continuing exploration of mysteries.

Galileo probably would have escaped persecution if his discoveries could have been disproved.

Science adjusts its views based on what's observed Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved.

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

We must conduct research and then accept the results. If they don't stand up to experimentation, Buddha's own words must be rejected.

In natural science the principles of truth ought to be confirmed by observation.

Observation and theory get on best when they are mixed together, both helping one another in the pursuit of truth. It is a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in a theory until it has been confirmed by observation. I hope I shall not shock the experimental physicists too much if I add that it is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they have been confirmed by theory.

Imagination should give wings to our thoughts but we always need decisive experimental proof, and when the moment comes to draw conclusions and to interpret the gathered observations, imagination must be checked and documented by the factual results of the experiment.

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.

A system such as classical mechanics may be 'scientific' to any degree you like; but those who uphold it dogmatically - believing, perhaps, that it is their business to defend such a successful system against criticism as long as it is not conclusively disproved - are adopting the very reverse of that critical attitude which in my view is the proper one for the scientist.