Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon Quotes
The human mind has no frontiers, it extends proportionately as the universe displays itself; man, then, can and must attempt all, and he needs only time in order to know all
Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, 1707-1788, French Physician, Attorney & Scientist, Quoted in Jacques Roger, The Life Sciences in Eighteenth-Century French Thought
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Sir Humphry was a religious man, and yet he focused on one of the great differences between science and religion. The latter is presumed true and eternal by its faithful, while science is never such. No truth is eternal in science and rarely does a scientific “truth” last 100 years without modification, elaboration or additional complexity. This is one of the reasons that scientists make poor witnesses at Congressional hearings. They are never certain of anything if they are good scientists. Witnesses from other fields testify with much more certainty as they are motivated by self interest or ideology where doubt is unacceptable.
This is an important historical quotation because earlier most people attributed anything they did not understand to God, the Gods, devils, demons, spirits, etc. Simply admitting that the reasons are unknown was quite difficult for centuries, Even today many people find accepting temporary ignorance difficult. One basic initial step in science is identifying the unknown and studying and researching to make it known.
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste.
