Noam Chomsky Quotes

SCIENCE: a way of finding things out and then making them work. Science explains what is happening around us the whole time. So does RELIGION, but science is better because it comes up with more understandable excuses when it's wrong.

The purpose of scientific method is to select a single truth from among many hypothetical truths. That, more than anything else, is what science is all about. But historically science has done exactly the opposite. Through multiplication upon multiplication of facts, information, theories and hypotheses, it is science itself that is leading mankind from single absolute truths to multiple indeterminate, relative ones.

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 itself, therefore, may be regarded as a minimal problem, consisting of the completest possible presentment of facts with the least possible expenditure of thought.

Why should there be the method of science? There is not just one way to build a house, or even to grow tomatoes. We should not expect something as motley as the growth of knowledge to be strapped to one methodology.

Scientists who think science consists of unprejudiced data-gathering without speculation are merely cows grazing on the pasture of knowledge.

Consider the way of the scientists rather than the way of an advertising agent for a new soap.

In this complex world, the scientific method, and the consequences of the scientific method are central to everything the human race is doing and to wherever we are going.

Science is a way of equipping yourself with the tools to interpret what happens in front of you.

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

I had learned that science is a rewarding, active process of discovery, not the passive absorption of what others had discovered.

What intrigues basic scientists like me is that anytime we do a series of experiments, there are going to be three or four new questions that come up when you think you've answered one.

When all is said and done, science actually takes hard work and a willingness to sometimes find out that your most cherished hypothesis is wrong.

The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.

If you're a physicist, for heaven's sake, and here is the experiment, and you have a theory, and the theory doesn't agree with the experiment, then you have to cut out the theory. You were wrong with the theory.

True science is never speculative; it employs hypotheses as suggesting points for inquiry, but it never adopts the hypotheses as though they were demonstrated propositions.

The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.

We must revisit the idea that science is a methodology and not an ontology.

A scientist... must accept the results of experiment, and nothing but the results of experiment.

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

If you're a real scientist, you're constantly open to new data. Nothing is ever 100% validated.

Something my father dearly loved is the scientific method, and it's founded in this element of humility. The idea is that you pursue the truth wherever it goes; you need to evidence, and you can - you see if it's repeatable.

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 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.

For me, science is just a bunch of tools - it's like playing the violin. I just enjoy calculating, and it's an instrument I know how to play. It's almost an athletic performance, in a way. I was just watching the Olympics, and that's how I feel when proving a theorem.