Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

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

Educated guesswork' is what science is. You form hypotheses, test them against the evidence, and if they fit the evidence, you can assume you've got close to the truth.

Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.

If you're a physicist, for heaven's sake, and here is the experiment, and you have a theory, and the theory doesn't agree with the experiment, then you have to cut out the theory. You were wrong with the theory.

I cannot stress often enough that what science is all about is not proving things to be true but proving them to be false.

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

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

A few observation and much reasoning lead to error; many observations and a little reasoning to truth.

Something my father dearly loved is the scientific method, and it's founded in this element of humility. The idea is that you pursue the truth wherever it goes; you need to evidence, and you can - you see if it's repeatable.

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.

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.

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.

One experiments and has to choose always the best results.

Science by itself is about numbers, and it's about measuring things. It's very important but it's very dry.

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.

I love to watch how scientists' minds work.

Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.

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.

Traditional science is all about finding shortcuts.

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.

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

We are the recipients of scientific method. We can each be a creative and active part of it if we so desire.