John Kerry Quotes

No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.

In science, all facts, no matter how trivial or banal, enjoy democratic equality.

Science has become politicized, and that's an embarrassment.

Even when EPA subjects its science to peer review, the agency often stacks the deck of supposedly independent advisory panels by including members who are EPA grant recipients.

But whereas skepticism and uncertainty have always been the heart and soul of science, confidence and certainty are the coin of the realm in much of today’s public discourse. Unquestioning confidence is deeply troubling for the scientific community because it is not the currency we trade in, and it has led people in America and around the world to question scientific enterprise itself. We should all be troubled when science is treated as if it were an ideology rather than a discipline.

We should all be troubled when science is treated as if it were an ideology rather than a discipline.

Anything that makes us take more seriously scientists - or economists or chemists or physicists or biologists - I think is helpful in times when things get distorted because of people not paying attention to all the facts.

Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for this -- partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sort of parties.

My complaint is that there are more books and news articles than there are primary scientific papers. I am probably the biggest critic of the hypesters, because it's dangerous when fields get overhyped.

If Baltimore's view, that scientists who do not take the words of authorities are far removed from the ordinary behavior of scientists, prevails in the scientific community, then something fundamental, very serious, and very disturbing is happening to the scientific community.

We have little choice but to place a certain level of trust in scientists - even when it comes to the model-driven speculative discipline of climate change. And, need it be said, most scientists take great care in being honest, principled and precise.

Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed.

What standards are upheld by the scientific community affect the community internally, and also affect its relations with society at large, including Congress.

Scientists are very afraid of being proven wrong.

Governments and scientists in India need to ensure that politics and religious ideology do not intrude into science. They belong to separate spheres, and if they are not kept separate, it is science in India and the country as a whole that will suffer.

Scientists are being portrayed by much of the power structure in politics and business as having a vested interest - that they're just out to get more grant money by exaggerating the threats.

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.

I’m opposed to passing laws based on phony science.

This political movement has patently demonstrated that it will not defend the integrity of science in any case in which science runs afoul of its core political constituencies. In so doing, it has ceded any right to govern a technologically advanced and sophisticated nation.

Too often reporters covering scientific debates give fringe views equal weight in a misguided attempt to achieve balance.

Science abuse is any attempt to inappropriately undermine or otherwise interfere with the scientific process, or scientific conclusions, for political or ideological purposes. Science abuse is not exclusively right wing.

The Republicans love the truth, but they hate facts.

The line between science and magic becomes blurred so that public judgments on technical issues can be erratic or badly flawed. It frequently appears that some people will believe almost anything. Thus judgments can be manipulated or warped by unscrupulous groups. Distortions or outright falsehoods can come to be accepted as fact.

The scientist is speaking in a forum to which opposing scientific views are not more or less automatically accorded equal access. The politician is free to select his own experts to develop an issue in the way that has maximum political utility to him. Truth may be only incidental. the scientist is speaking in a forum to which opposing scientific views are not more or less automatically accorded equal access. The politician is free to select his own experts to develop an issue in the way that has maximum political utility to him. Truth may be only incidental.

Bogus science gives vague, undisciplined thinking the look of seriousness and truth.