Gregory Bateson Quotes

Scientific method, although in its more refined forms it may seem complicated, is in essence remarkably simply. It consists in observing such facts as will enable the observer to discover general laws governing facts of the kind in question. The two stages, first of observation, and second of inference to a law, are both essential, and each is susceptible of almost indefinite refinement. (1931)

Science is about applying what we know and asking what we don't know.

I was always interested in figuring things out. I'd do experiments, like combining things I found around the house to see what would happen if I put them together.

Experimentation is an active science.

The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions.

Basic research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.

Experiment is fundamentally only induced observation.

Experiment is the sole source of truth.

We have relatively little time and a whole lot of curiosity, so the most efficient way to get there is what we do, and that often happens to be some form of science.

A true scientist is bored by knowledge; it is the assault on ignorance that motivates him - the mysteries that previous discoveries have revealed.

I'm very interested in science.

Science is always inquiring.

And what I wanted to do was, I wanted to explore problems and areas where we didn't have answers. In fact, where we didn't even know the right questions to ask.

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.

I enjoy science, and I'm a very curious person. I always want to know the reason behind everything, big or small.

The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he is one who asks the right questions.

That is the essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to a pertinent answer.

Science is curiosity, testing and experimenting.

The fundamental essence of science, which I think we've lost in our education system, is poking something with a stick and seeing what happens. Embrace that process of inquiry.

That's really what science is just trying to figure stuff out, and I like figuring stuff out.

We live in an age of universal investigation, and of exploration of the sources of all movements.

In much of society, research means to investigate something you do not know or understand.

I missed the basic curiosity of being in the lab.

Research sometimes feels like an ongoing TV series in which some amazing revelations have already been made, but there are still plenty of cliff-hangers and unresolved plotlines that you want to see resolved. But unlike TV, we have to do the work ourselves to figure out what happens next.