Charles H. Townes Quotes

Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.'

Science does not limit itself merely to what is currently verifiable. But it is interested in questions that are potentially verifiable (or, rather, falsifiable).

The facts of science are real enough, and so are the techniques that scientists use, and so are the technologies based on them. But the belief system that governs conventional scientific thinking is an act of faith.

Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature.

From Roger Bacon, the 13th century Franciscan who pioneered the scientific method, to George Lemaitre, the 20th century Belgian priest who first developed a mathematical foundation for the 'Big Bang,' people of faith have played a key role in advancing scientific understanding.

The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions.

Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof.

By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.

The aim of natural science is not simply to accept the statements of others, but to investigate the causes that are at work in nature.

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.

We call the one side [of humanity] religion, and we call the other science. Religion is always right. ... Science is always wrong; it is the very artifice of men. Science can never solve one problem without raising ten more problems.

Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.

The scientific imagination always restrains itself within the limits of probability.

Science goes from question to question; big questions, and little, tentative answers. The questions as they age grow ever broader, the answers are seen to be more limited.

Science is defined in various ways, but today it is generally restricted to something which is experimental, which is repeatable, which can be predicted, and which is falsifiable.

Everything that people say is testable.

Science is always inquiring.

Facts are the air of scientists. Without them you can never fly.

Science is facts.

I really do think that science has an internal structure, and it makes sense, and we can test it.

I oppose any belief that contradicts experimental evidence as determined by the methods of science. All beliefs not in such contradiction may be considered as faith. Whether faith in a particular belief is beneficial or not is another matter.

In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.

Nothing you'll read as breaking news will ever hold a candle to the sheer beauty of settled science. Textbook science has carefully phrased explanations for new students, math derived step by step, plenty of experiments as illustration, and test problems.

I really believe in science. It is a faith. It is a reverence akin to religion. But as we always say, it's different from religion in that, as near as we can tell, it exists outside of us. It has an objective quality, the process of science.

Science is knowledge arranged and classified according to truth, facts, and the general laws of nature.