Alice Roberts Quotes

True science teaches, above all, to doubt

Science is the search for truth, that is the effort to understand the world: it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality.

Science rests on reason and experiment, and can meet an opponent with calmness; but a belief is always sensitive.

A scientist... must accept the results of experiment, and nothing but the results of experiment.

I take what I see work. I'm a strict believer in the scientific principle of believing nothing, only taking the best evidence available at the present time, interpreting it as best you can, and leaving your mind open to the fact that new evidence will appear tomorrow.

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.

Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has good reason to believe.

What is called "objectivity," scientific for instance (in which I firmly believe, in a given situation) imposes itself only within a context which is extremely vast, old, firmly established, or rooted in a network of conventions ... and yet which still remains a context.

It is assumed that the skeptic has no bias; whereas he has a very obvious bias in favour of skepticism.

The process of science is difficult and challenging. It involves always being aware that your ideas might be right or they might be wrong. I think it's that kind of balance that makes science so interesting.

Science has to be understood in its broadest sense, as a method for comprehending all observable reality, and not merely as an instrument for acquiring specialized knowledge.

I don't think the scientific method and the science fictional method are really analogous. The thing about them is that neither is really practiced very much, at least not consciously. But the fact that they are methodical does relate them.

When all is said and done, science actually takes hard work and a willingness to sometimes find out that your most cherished hypothesis is wrong.

The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority.

It is necessary to look at the results of observation objectively, because you, the experimenter, might like one result better than another.

The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.

Realists do not fear the results of their study.

If you're a scientist, and you have to have an answer, even in the absence of data, you're not going to be a good scientist.

Science is the refusal to believe on the basis of hope.

Unlike scientism, science in the true sense of the word is open to unbiased investigation of any existing phenomena.

Science is not a game in which arbitrary rules are used to decide what explanations are to be permitted.

Complete objectivity is not an option. We are all subjective about the way we respond to 'what is,' whether it's the people we encounter, the circumstances in our lives, or ourselves. What we can do is reduce our subjectivity - what I call 'I see, therefore it is.'

Conservatives need to go where the facts, not ideology, take them.

Opinions should not be allowed to become conclusions

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.