Peter Medawar Quotes

Science is not a body of facts. Science is a state of mind. It is a way of viewing the world, of facing reality square on but taking nothing on its face. It is about attacking a problem with the most manicured of claws and tearing it down into sensible, edible pieces.

It is a very long and very difficult road from a fact to a conclusion. But it is a million times longer from a theory to a fact.

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

Doubt the conventional wisdom unless you can verify it with reason and experiment.

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself.

...science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common-sense rounded out and minutely articulated. It is therefore as much an instinctive product, as much a stepping forth of human courage in the dark, as is any inevitable dream or impulsive action.

Unscientific man is beset by a deplorable desire to have been right. The scientist is distinguished by a desire to be right.

Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.

A truly open mind means forcing our imaginations to conform to the evidence of reality, and not vice versa.

The scientists from Franklin to Morse were clear thinkers and did not produce erroneous theories. The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane. Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.

If the evidence says you're wrong, you don't have the right theory. You change the theory, not the evidence.

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

Every theory in philosophy, which is built on pure conjecture, is an elephant; and every theory that is supported partly by fact, and partly by conjecture, is like Nebuchadnezzar's image, whose feet were partly of iron, and partly of clay.

The invention of the scientific method and science is, I'm sure we'll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked. If it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn't withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn't seem to work like that.

I should consider that I know nothing about physics if I were able to explain only how things might be, and were unable to demonstrate that they could not be otherwise.

Anecdotal thinking comes naturally; science requires training.

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

What we can do is provide the tools, through our educational system, for people to be able to tell sense from nonsense. These tools include the scientific method, skeptical questioning, empirical evidence, verifying sources, etc.

The scientist is indistinguishable from the common man in his sense of evidence, except that the scientist is more careful.

Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism... for testing your thoughts against the universe.

Science is a method, not a religion, yet it can be just as close-minded. Open minds here Claire. Always open minds. Question everything, accept nothing as fact until you prove it for yourself.

It turned out I was pretty good in science. But again, because of the small budget, in science class we couldn't afford to do experiments in order to prove theories. We just believed everything. Actually, I think that class was called Religion. Religion class was always an easy class. All you had to do was suspend the logic and reasoning you were being taught in all the other classes.

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.

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

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.