Priyamvada Natarajan Quotes

Indeed science alone may perhaps be sterile when pursued without an understanding of the world in which scientific knowledge is created and in which the fruits of science are used.

In science, each new result, sometimes quite surprising, heralds a step forward and allows one to discard some hypotheses, even though one or two of these might have been highly favored.

We must understand the motives and forces of our time and analyze their structure from three points of view: the material, the functional, and the spiritual. We must make clear in what respects our epoch differs from others and in what respects it is similar.

I try to understand place on a deeper level than just the physical or environmental aspects. It includes cultural and intellectual forces, too. It's an inclusive approach that brings in many disciplines and sees place as a dynamic thing.

Scientific research involves going beyond the well-trodden and well-tested ideas and theories that form the core of scientific knowledge. During the time scientists are working things out, some results will be right, and others will be wrong. Over time, the right results will emerge.

There is no falsification before the emergence of a better theory.

While it is quite reasonable for scientists to be skeptical of new ideas that do not fit within the accepted realm of scientific knowledge, the best science often emerges from situations where results carefully obtained do not fit within the accepted paradigms.

I'm a big believer that science is part of a larger cultural thing. Science is not all by itself.

In a few decades of reconstruction, even the mathematical natural sciences, the ancient archetypes of theoretical perfection, have changed habit completely!

Science is a self-correcting discipline that can, in subsequent generations, show that previous ideas were not correct.

You can't just read the Koran to understand Muslim life. You have to look at history, at personalities, at economics, and so on.

I proceed with the proper subject of this discourse; namely, the further changes in scientific belief, which have occurred within my own recollection, even since the time when I first aspired to authorship, now forty- five years ago.

Scientists tend to build a reputation on refuting the theories of those who have gone before. Yet, whatever we hypothesize, observe, measure or record about the natural world, it leaves more unanswered questions.

What scientists believe today may have to be revised in the light of observations made tomorrow, [In that sense] we can describe all our science as "theory.

Thus with every advance in our scientific knowledge new elements come up, often forcing us to recast our entire picture of physical reality. No doubt, theorists would much prefer to perfect and amend their theories rather than be obliged to scrap them continually. But this obligation is the condition and price of all scientific progress.

The business of biomedical research is mostly about failure. Few projects we commission will ultimately result in success. But every study we do contributes to the body of knowledge that brings science and society closer to a solution.

One of Kuhn's marvellous legacies is science studies as we know it today.

Because you have seen something doesn't mean you can explain it. Differing interpretations will always abound, even when good minds come to bear. The kernel of indisputable information is a dot in space; interpretations grow out of the desire to make this point a line, to give it direction. The directions in which it can be sent, the uses to which it can be put by a culturally, professionally, and geographically diverse society are almost without limit. The possibilities make good scientists chary.

My advice to the 10 year old daughter is: fashion happens in a context. It's societal, it's cultural, it's historic, it's economic, and it's political. So all of her studies, everything that is happening in the world, all needs to be channeled through her in order to be a good designer.

Each worldview was a cultural product, but evolution is true and separate creation is not. [...] Worldviews are social constructions, and they channel the search for facts. But facts are found and knowledge progresses, however fitfully. Fact and theory are intertwined, and all great scientists understand the interaction.

I don't believe that art and politics or social issues must be separated. In writing about marriage, for example, money can be a big factor, and money is linked to earning, and earning is influenced by politics.

"Religion" can no more be equated with what goes on in churches than "education" can be reduced to what happens in schools or "health care" restricted to what doctors do to patients in clinics. The vast majority of healing and learning goes on among parents and children and families and friends, far from the portals of any school or hospital. The same is true for religion. It is going on around us all the time. Religion is larger and more pervasive than churches.

Wine is a civilizing agent.

Momentum was part of the exhilaration and the exhaustion of the twentieth century which Coward decoded for the British but borrowed wholesale from the Americans.

That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in another.