Alison Gopnik Quotes

Truth in science can be defined as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one.

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.

Research programmes, besides their negative heuristic, are also characterized by their positive heuristic.

I love to watch how scientists' minds work.

Science isn't about authority or white coats; it's about following a method. That method is built on core principles: precision and transparency; being clear about your methods; being honest about your results; and drawing a clear line between the results, on the one hand, and your judgment calls about how those results support a hypothesis.

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.

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

In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.

The thrill of science is the process. It's a social process. It's a process of collective discovery. It's debate, it's experimentation and it's verification of claims that might be false. It's the greatest foundation for a society.

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

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

Hypotheses are what we lack the least.

Science always has its origin in the adaptation of thought to some definite field of experience.

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

Under normal conditions the research scientist is not an innovator but a solver of puzzles, and the puzzles upon which he concentrates are just those which he believes can be both stated and solved within the existing scientific tradition.

I am not here concerned with intent, but with scientific standards, especially the ability to tell the difference between a fact, an opinion, a hypothesis, and a hole in the ground.

Those in science perform research, have it reviewed by their peers, publish the results, and believe the answer should be obvious.

A good scientist can understand the current state of a field, pick interesting questions where a success will actually lead to useful new knowledge, and push that field further through their work.

We should be cautious about embracing data before it is published in the academic press, and must always avoid treating correlation as causation.

I think science has a better story to tell than anyone else has been able to tell and that's because it's based on the rigorous winnowing that science and scientists are always doing in order to find out what's really happening. I think it's really good to encourage generally our ability to tell stories and that's a great skill that we come by naturally, so I'm excited about that.

The method of science, as stodgy and grumpy as it may seem, is far more important than the findings of science.

Every theory presented as a scientific concept is just that; it's a theory that tries to explain more about the world than previous theories have done. It is open to being challenged and to being proven incorrect.

Science is simply a powerful way of understanding what's real and what isn't, what's true and what's not. It can help us determine what works, what doesn't, for whom, and under what circumstances.

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